


A Song for Mikael

by Mikaiyawa



Category: Panik
Genre: Alternate Universe, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-01-20
Updated: 2010-01-20
Packaged: 2017-10-06 12:28:58
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 68,321
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/53647
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mikaiyawa/pseuds/Mikaiyawa
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Curiosity will sometimes change your life.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Song for Mikael

Linke had been half a step from storming over to the street musician and giving him a stout shouting at when he heard something that made him pause.  The woman who was the young man’s sole active audience had said the guitarist was very talented (which if Linke was feeling fair he would have agreed with, he just wasn’t feeling **_remotely_** fair right now) but the young man had smiled and softly told her he couldn’t take any credit.  Then he told her who had written the song he’d just played and sung, to Linke’s utter shock he’d given full credit to the original artist and even mentioned that said artist was the bassist for a band that had another album due out soon.

Then the young man had shyly admitted he was saving bits of money to buy Panik’s upcoming album and had gone on to admit that if Linke ever released an album of his own he’d be in line to get it.

The level of honesty must have hit her where it counted because she dropped a few coins into the young man’s guitar case and requested another song.  Linke found himself listening to his own work again (by request this time) and felt both flattered and put out.  So as he listened to a very creditable version of Get Home Linke carefully observed the young guitarist.

His sneakers and jeans were worn, his jacket old but carefully repaired and his painfully thin fingers came out of fingerless knitted mitts that looked to have been made with the tag ends of dozens of different yarns.  His face, like his hands, was almost painfully thin.  His eyes were obscured by a heavy fall of indeterminately dark hair that only had one distinguishing feature, a wide skunk stripe of white coming off the left temple.  Linke had the strange feeling it was natural, not a bleached streak but couldn’t say why he felt that way.

Linke accepted another mug of tea from the waitress and continued watching the young man sing and play for the passing crowd.  He noted that although the schoolchildren who stopped and asked for songs had very little (and often no) money to drop in the battered guitar case the musician still took care to answer their requests, but he still gently reminded two of them that they needed to get on home or their mothers would worry.  That implied he was here regularly.  The fact that a few businessmen sought him out, one asking for a rather obscure American tune so the other could hear it implied a breath of musical knowledge that made Linke think this man shouldn’t be making his poor living as a street busker.  The largest thing he’d seen dropped in the case was a ten euro note, and while there was a good pile of small coins Linke didn’t think it would be good for much more than a meal and a cup of coffee.

So Linke watched and until it was time for him to go and meet up with his band mates at the nightclub they’d decided on to celebrate Timo’s twenty-third birthday.  Linke noticed as he gathered up his phone and left enough money on the table to cover his bill and leave a nice tip for the waitress that the object of his scrutiny was also gathering up his case, dumping his take for the day into a small cloth bag that vanished into an interior pocket and lovingly packing away his guitar.

He pondered the whimsies of fame, fate and an honest street musician as he watched the tall slender man vanish into the crowd.  Linke chewed his lower lip for a moment then shrugged and walked away from the café himself.

~0~

Linke laughed at the put out look on Timo’s face after he’d been challenged to sweet talk a kiss out of their waitress and had been just drunk enough to accept Timo’s dare to kiss the next person who entered the club.

He hadn’t expected that to be a boy, most of the people coming in were young women intent on a night of dancing.  To Linke’s shock he recognized the splash of dead white hair against indeterminate brown and painfully thin frame of the street musician who had captured his attention earlier.  That Juri and Jan were laughing about how Linke would need to wine and dine any of the girls they’d seen in the club and how Timo had gotten his snog for free kept them distracted as Linke took another long look at the young man as he headed for the bar.

Linke had expected him to order a beer, not be greeted with a smile as he ducked behind the bar himself and took up an apron and a station.  Linke frowned as he watched those slender hands making short work of some sickly sweet cocktail for a female patron who barely looked legal and jumped when Jan nudged him.

“What?”

Jan just gave him a full on evil grin, and Linke felt his stomach drop.  “Oh no. No way, Timo didn’t have to kiss a guy,” Linke protested, but even as the words left his mouth he knew he wasn’t getting out of this one.  Timo had an unholy gleam in his eye and even David was looking amused.  Linke groaned and swore; he knew that his best friends loved him, but damn-it why did they have to keep trying to fix him up with someone, he was perfectly content being alone!  They knew he couldn’t afford to try and have a boyfriend right now, not with their fourth album still in the works and if anything leaked they’d have a publicity nightmare to cope with.  None of them had the **time** to devote to a serious relationship outside of the band,

The ribbing got more intense as Timo started making clucking noises and David pouted that Linke was backing out of a bet.  Franky was only marginally on his side but Franky didn’t find guys attractive with a few very glaring exceptions and Juri was just smirking and staying silent.

Eventually Linke gave up and swearing savagely stomped up to the bar to where the object of his bet was spinning grenadine syrup into a pattern on the inside of a glass.  Linke settled himself on a barstool to wait until his target wasn’t busy and just watched.  Those long thin fingers were as deft on a glass as on guitar strings as they spun the glass to make a neat spiral of syrup, he then set the glass down to add a precise splash of lime juice and followed it up with seltzer water.  The drink was handed over to another, older, but still very pretty, woman who thanked him by name and dropped a note in the tip jar.

The music picked up and Linke found his lull to talk to the newly named Mikael.  Up close he was fragile looking, almost pretty and Linke wondered what he’d look like with his long brown hair loose instead of tailed neatly back.

“What can I get for you,” the voice was calm and just audible over the thumping of the music.  But he hadn’t looked up at Linke yet, just made sure Linke knew he had been noted and was being listened to.  Linke was surprised that Mikael’s speaking voice was only a touch deeper than his own; his singing voice had been a good bit deeper of a tenor than Linke’s own.

“Out of a bet,” answered Linke, deciding that a direct approach would get him the best results.  Then that thin face snapped up and around to stare at him, Mikael had green eyes, Linke groaned internally, he had a terrible weakness for green eyes.

“I beg your pardon?” The expression and vocal tone were both wary as Linke felt himself being carefully scrutinized.  But Linke had expected that, it wasn’t exactly an everyday thing what he was trying to do.

“I need you to help me get out of a bet.”

“Not settle a bet, get _out_ of a bet,” was the query, which made Linke wonder how many times this man had been asked to settle a bet.  The slender man dried his hands on a towel and warily came closer.

“Yep, my friends,” and Linke gestured back toward the table where his band mates were sitting and avidly watching the proceedings, “made Timo kiss our waitress and he challenged me to kiss the next person through the doors.”  Linke locked eyes with the bartender to make his meaning perfectly clear.  “You’re it.”

That got him an incredulous snort from his target and delighted whoops of amusement from the other two barmen on duty.  Linke didn’t expect the answer he got, or the ribbing the guy got from his coworkers.

“Not while I’m on shift.”

“Aww, don’t be so mean to the poor guy Mikey,” razzed the one with spiky red hair.

“Yeah,” agreed his larger buddy with the shaved head. “You give the girls kisses all the time.”  Both men clearly knew something Linke didn’t from the slight flush rising over Mikael’s finely drawn cheekbones.

“On the cheek,” Mikael shot back.  “Luna got a tonsil check.”  Mikael turned back to Linke and locked eyes with him.  “Not while I’m on duty.”  So Linke leaned forward on his elbows on the bar and got within a few centimeters of the other man’s face.  From the hooting from the Panik table the guys thought he was going to get what he wanted.  The look on Mikael’s face warned Linke that if he tried anything he might just walk away from the bar drenched in tonic water.

“So,” Linke challenged with a smirk, “when do you go on break?” Mikael leaned close enough that Linke could feel the warmth of the other man’s skin.  He had the most amazing and intense green eyes up close.

“I’m not telling you.”  Then he’d turned and walked away leaving Linke a bit breathless and the other two guys groaning and catcalling after him.  The roar from his own friends was one of amusement and disappointment.  The bald barkeep beckoned him over and started to pull a pint of the bitter Linke liked, though how the guy remembered was beyond him.

“Mikael is on short shift tonight,” he said quietly.  “One of our normal guys called in sick and Mik’s always needing the work and he’s good. So keep an eye on him and around midnight or one he’ll be going off shift unless we get a late rush.  Usually he’ll hang around and dance a little so you might can catch him then.”

Linke blinked and cocked his head to one side.  “Why are you telling me this,” he asked feeling like he was being set up for something.

The big man shoved the pint over to Linke and leaned on the bar with both big hands.  “Mikael needs to not be alone tonight.”  When Linke reached back for his wallet he got a negative head shake. “On the house, just keep an eye on our little songbird, hey?”

Linke blinked again and nodded, his eyes drifting to his right to where Mikael was mixing another set of sweet concoctions for a group of pretty girls fresh from the dance floor.  All the girls were flirting hard with him and all they got was a low key bit of flirting back, just enough to keep them interested but not anywhere near enough to be a real expression of interest.  A low level professional flirt, just what a bartender needed to keep his clientele buying drinks.  Linke looked back.

“I’ll do that, thanks.” He took his beer and headed back to the table.

“Aww, did the Linkster get shot down,” drawled a slightly drunk Timo with a wicked little grin as Linke reclaimed his stool.  David just laughed and mimed a blow at Timo’s head.  But David was driving them all home tonight and had only had a couple beers and now was sticking to cokes.  Linke just smiled mysteriously and let his friends tease him.  Only when Timo tried to get him to pay for the next round did Linke comment.

“He said not while he’s on duty, and you never set a penalty for if I didn’t succeed, so buy your own damn beer.” Linke grinned at the five stunned faces staring back at him and smirked when David caught on and started laughing.  Juri just roared in laughter at the woebegone pout on Timo’s face and after giving Linke a hard buffet on his shoulder agreed to get the next round as a ‘gift’ to the birthday boy.

After the next round was out a pair of girls came up and all but dragged David and Timo out to dance.  Jan had been bouncing in his seat all night and very shortly would be giving Juri the big eyes to go dance with him.  And Franky was going to get pounced very soon if Linke’s assessment of the three girls standing to the right of their table was anything near correct.

Linke grinned and awarded himself a few mental points when mere seconds after Jan had grabbed Juri’s wrist and dragged the drummer out onto the floor Franky got swooped on and lured away from the table.  Linke smirked at their waitress as came back by to clear the table of empty glasses and bottles; all she did was dimple back at him and wink.

Now that he had no other distractions Linke turned back to watching the bar.  Mikael he noticed tended to do the mixing of the girly drinks, not that the other two couldn’t or didn’t, he just seemed to attract the shyer and younger girls.  Linke also noticed he was mixing what seemed like a lot of drinks that had no alcohol in them at all and only appeared to be drinking water himself.  He clearly was licensed and had a great deal of skill, so far Linke hadn’t seen anyone leave the bar without getting what they’d wanted.  But then he couldn’t be sure that the extended conversations were complex drink requests and not simple flirting.  So why, wondered Linke, had the other barkeep said he was a fill in and not a regular?  Why had he spent his day playing for small change? There was always a need for good bartenders, so why the mention of him always needing the work.  Linke couldn’t see if the other mans arms had marks on them from this distance, and before he hadn’t yet rolled his sleeves up.  Linke chewed his lower lip and pondered.

~0~

The guys came back to the table sweaty and mussed and in Franky’s case looking well shagged out.  They got another round of beer and cokes and the DJ who had been on duty swapped off with a new guy who subtly shifted the music to something more growl-y than the bouncy music before.  Jan still bounced and bopped along in his seat and the girls still danced.

Then Linke noticed that his favorite musing subject wasn’t behind the bar.  He sat up sharply and started scanning the dance floor.  Linke didn’t pay attention to the fact his sudden movement had made all his friends jump or that they were all watching him with varying expression of amusement or confusion.  Franky was drunk enough to be a couple steps behind though, and he was good at being confused.

Then Linke found him, off in a dark corner at the far side of the dance floor and almost under the DJ booth, standing quietly just watching the dancers.  Linke abandoned his beer and seat and went stalking around the room.

“Chris?” Franky started and was shushed by David as Jan all but fell off his stool giggling.  Timo dropped a ten euro note on table.

“Ten says he gets blown off again.”

Juri laughed and dropped a note of his own on the table. “Bet he doesn’t.”  The others all reached for their wallets and the betting war was on.

~0~

Mikael wasn’t paying as close attention as he should have been; he’d figured the guy who had wanted to kiss him had forgotten all about it.  The table he’d been sitting at had been doing some serious merry making and bar one were all very, **_very_** drunk.  And the one wasn’t the guy who’d propositioned him so Mikael felt pretty safe.  He had two ways out, three if he counted the dance floor, so Mikael wasn’t terribly worried when he saw the tall, dark haired man stalking up to him.  He just mentally rolled his eyes and sighed, debating if he should appear to not notice and head out to dance or not.

A firm hand on his upper arm aborted any dancing plans he’d had.  The guy moved a **_lot_** faster than he’d expected, and had a grip like iron.

“You’re not on duty now.”  **_Fuck_**, he remembered and he didn’t sound nearly as drunk as he had to be.  Mikael turned and looked up slightly into the taller mans eyes, silly that a few centimeters made him feel so vulnerable.

“No.”  Mikael swallowed hard as the taller man crowded him back into the wall.  The hand on his arm moved up to stroke gently through his skunk stripe as the other came up to grip his right arm.  Mikael tried not to wince as a gentle callused fingertip traced over the barely there scar under the white hairs.

“Hmm,” hummed the other man, sounding faintly pleased with himself. “I thought that was natural.” 

This time Mikael couldn’t stop the little shudder as the hand stroked back and tugged his hair tie loose.  He _hated_ it when strangers commented on the white in his hair; he also wasn’t terribly thrilled with having his hair taken down as that had been his last hair tie.  Now he’d have to go buy more and he’d been hoping to put that off for a few more days yet.

“Shh,” Mikael wasn’t soothed by the gentle shushing sound, not when he had almost two meters of solid mass pushing him back into the alcove under the DJ platform.  The guy was attractive, but Mikael had always made a point to not get cornered by any client of the bars he worked at.  He planted both hands firmly on the guy’s chest and gave a little shove, the guy might be thin but he still didn’t budge.

“No.”  All that got him was a pout.  No guy should have the ability to pout like that, Mikael stomped hard on the urge to bite at the plush lower lip.  But the heat from another person seeping into his bones made it hard to keep up his resolve, worse the guy was touching him so gently.  He felt like he was being treated like a nervous virgin and wasn’t sure he liked it no matter how good the soft caresses felt.

“You said not while you’re on duty,” breathed the voice in his ear.  Mikael shivered, why did this guy have to have a perfect fucking sex voice, all soft and husky.  Mikael closed his eyes and turned his face away, only realizing at the last second that that wasn’t a good idea.  Soft lips brushed hot kisses down his neck and all Mikael could do was shiver and grab at the guy’s arms.

It had been so long, and this felt so good.  The hand on his arm shifted down and rested lightly on his hip.  Mikael bit at his lip to keep the little cry inside when he felt the guy’s hips bump into his own; more critically the feel of the other guy’s hard cock rubbing his own through their jeans.

“You aren’t on duty now.” It wasn’t a question and Mikael quietly cursed Sepp and Markus for their meddling.  He was alone for a _reason_, damn-it.

“No,” he started to answer, opening his eyes and forcing himself to look up into the others.  Mikael thought he had slate blue eyes when he’d been at the bar now they were more a dark slate gray.

“Do you really want me to stop?”  That was a good question Mikael thought to himself.  His head said this was a bad, **_bad_** idea; his body was all for getting some gratification.  So he hedged.

“I don’t know your name and you don’t know mine.”

“I know your name is Mikael,” whispered that voice and Mikael cursed Sepp again for being a meddling bastard.

“Sepp is the bald one,” asked the voice letting Mikael know he’d slipped and cursed aloud.  The hand on his hip was rubbing gentle circles, rocking him ever so slightly into the other mans frame.

“Y, yeah,” Mikael managed.  Where the fuck was his control?  He got a shockingly warm smile; all he’d seen from this guy tonight were grins and variations on a smirk not a _real_ smile.  He must use it as a special weapon, Mikael thought, it was devastating enough.

“I’m Christian,” and this time Mikael didn’t turn away when that mouth moved toward him.

All Mikael could do initially was hang on, then he threaded one hand into Christian’s dark hair and kissed back for all he was worth.  There was nothing gentle in that kiss, just wanton heat and need.  Mikael moaned into that mouth as Christian crushed him back into the wall and ground into him hard. 

Gods, that felt so good, Mikael found his other hand reaching down and around Christian and pulled the taller man closer, shifting their angles so they ground together better.  The moan Mikael got sent his blood tingling and the growl he got for his little bark of laughter made his heart rate trip up even faster.

But Christian didn’t stop, just moved on to attacking his neck and fumbling with the buttons on their jeans.  Mikael groaned but didn’t want to stop either as his hand started delving down the back of Christian’s jeans.

“Oh god,” groaned Christian as he finally wormed a hand into Mikael’s fly and touched warm flesh.  Mikael hadn’t had the time for underwear when he’d gotten the call to come in and work so Christian’s hand was wrapping around bare skin with no obstructions and after bit of a scramble later and Mikael was fighting not to cry out as another hot hard cock lined up with his and was firmly fisted tight into it.  The mouth fastening over his own helped tremendously and a series of demanding kisses muffled any outcries that forced their way out.

It still felt way too good, hot, hard and fast and when the burn started coiling tight in his balls Mikael wedged his hand under Christian’s boxers and slid a finger down between his buttocks.  He couldn’t reach his target but apparently just the fact he tried made his partner groan and tense up.  Half a heartbeat later Mikael had thrown his head back and come as well.

Lukas grinned down at him from his spot behind the turntables and Mikael could only weakly grin up at the DJ as he panted.  He weakly pulled his hand free of Christian’s pants and slid that hand up the back of the taller mans shirt and just waited out the aftershocks.  Lukas wouldn’t tease him much; he and his partner Nikki had been caught in a similar position far too many times by Mikael to be able to tease very hard.  The feel of soft lips on his throat brought Mikael’s full attention back to Christian.

Seeing the other mans tongue lap at a bit of the wetness on his fingers made something in Mikael’s belly twist hard.  God, did this guy read his mind for kinks or something?  The amused little smirk told him he’d been caught staring and Mikael dropped his eyes with a wry little grin.

“Settle the bet,” he asked softly, wanting to get the separation issues dealt with so he could go home and shake for a while.  He didn’t expect the smirk to shift to a warm smile.

“Yeah, I think so, thanks.”  Clean up was managed with the napkins Lukas tossed down to him and they both put themselves back together quickly.  Any further awkwardness was lost when the sound of two screaming female voices rose on the dance floor.

“Fuck,” Mikael moved to see what was happening, and to help the bouncers separate the two fighting girls.  When the fight was settled and Mikael was able to look over toward Christian’s table all he saw was empty glasses and abandoned bottles and Luna was happily picking up the mess.  They must have left a good tip.

He wasn’t sure why that left him feeling disappointed.  He wasn’t likely to ever see the guy again.

~0~

Mikael sighed as he felt someone looming over him.  Why did they always have to block the sun anyway?  It wasn’t really cold yet for late September but the warmth of the sun was still a welcome thing for someone sitting outside for any length of time.  Mikael looked up and smiled one of his professional smiles.  He found himself being glared at by a slim square shouldered young man with a rooster crest of brown hair and _furious_ brown eyes.

“You know who wrote that song,” he demanded icily and Mikael stifled a groan.  Just his luck, this guy was the rapper for Panik, best buddies with the guy whose songs he’s been idly playing.

“Yes,” Mikael started, his hands stilling on the guitar.

“Then why are you playing it.  It isn’t yours.”  Mikael took a breath and answered.

“People ask for Linke’s work, they know I know it and ask me to play it.”  Mikael made sure he looked Timo square in the eyes and quietly prayed that volatile young man took his words as truth and backed off.  He didn’t need a bloody nose or a split lip to go with his cold hands.

“You’re still a fucking thief.”

Mikael couldn’t stop the flinch at the venom in those words.

“Timo,” another voice, one he hadn’t expected to ever hear again called the rapper off.  “Timo, chill.  He credits, I’ve heard him, and it’s okay.”  Christian gave him a faint smile and focused on calming his friend down.

“Linke,” Timo growled, but Christian just sighed and wrapped a hand around his friend’s mouth.  Timo scowled darkly but let the hand stay for the moment.

“Don’t _Linke_ me Timo.  It’s my work, he credits it, hell he damn near pimps our new album for us.” 

Mikael ducked his head and tried to figure out how he knew; had he been watching, if so for how long.  Was last night really a bet, or had it started out as something else.  Why the hell hadn’t he registered the group last night was Panik and the guy who tried to fuck him in the cubby under the DJ booth was **_that_** Christian. Mikael tried to keep his breathing steady as he looked back up and hoped his shivering would just be taken as him being cold.  Why did he have to have a panic attack **_now_** of all times, he’d hoped he was done with the damn things.

“It’s not like he’s making a fortune out here,” those slate blue eyes looked back down at him and an eyebrow quirked in question, all Mikael could do was shake his head negatively.  If he got a hundred Euros it was a really good day, twenty or thirty was more common, just enough to eat on and save a bit for leaner times.  “Besides, it’s my work, if anyone has the right to be offended it’s me, and I’m not.”  The smile was back and Mikael swallowed hard.

Timo still was clearly far from pleased, but with Christian being calm about the whole thing he couldn’t really continue blasting Mikael.  After a long hard stare the rapper spun and ducked away from Christian’s loose hold and stomped back to the little coffee shop to slouch in a chair at a table with the rest of his band mates and scowl fiercely back at them.  Mikael had a quick fervent wish for the ground to open up under him when he recognized them from the bar last night.  The guy who had been getting Luna to kiss him, the cute little blond who had chattered at Lukas and Nikki about turntables and the bigger blond who had smiled fondly down at his small friend.  Why, oh _why_ hadn’t he recognized them last night?

They were all watching him.

“Hey, you okay?”  Mikael flinched again when Christian squatted down to look him in the eye.  He ducked his head and nodded quietly, praying that the bassist would take him at his unspoken word and go back to his friends and then that they would finish their coffee and _go_ **_away_**.

A gentle hand cupped his chin and forced Mikael’s head up.  After the fleeting urge to fight it Mikael let Christian lift his head to look into his eyes.

“You sure?” Mikael forced himself to smile, it was probably wobbly and weak, but that could be attributed to having an artist you were essentially stealing from catch you and be okay with it, he hoped so anyway.  All he needed was a few more moments and he’d have the attack under control.

“Yeah, a little cold is all.  Been a slow day.” Mikael shrugged.  Soon it would be too cold to play outdoors and he’d have to either move down into the underground or find a café that would let him have a small corner.  He didn’t think that this winter the café on the corner would be a wise or terribly safe bet.  Not with all of Panik turning up in it.  Next time Timo might be on his own and deck him.

“It’s slowing down a lot isn’t it,” mused Christian as he shifted and settled down on the step just below Mikael.  Mikael felt horribly uncomfortable but answered as best he could, as he felt the fear twisting under his control.

“Yeah, it always does at this time of year.”  Mikael watched his hands as he picked out the Brahms variation he’d transcribed to amuse a baby last summer, it always helped him calm down.  He missed the little jerk David made in his chair and the blink of surprise from Christian.

“So what will you do when it’s too cold?”

The cluster of schoolgirls who came up and fluttered at him kept Mikael for having to directly answer, he did have to gently deflect the girl’s questions about who Christian was.  He missed the frown Timo shot him at his quiet answer that Christian was the author of some of the music Mikael played.  The glare might have been from the girls begging Tear a Hole from him or from the girls fluttering at Christian, he’d never know.

After a few songs though Mikael had to gently remind the two older girls that their mothers would worry as he had to almost every day and watch them scamper off.  Silently he blessed them for their distraction, in a few minutes he could pack up and leave and hope to god if he _ever_ saw Christian Linke again it was because he was at the **_back_** of a concert crowd.

“You never answered my question,” reminded Christian with a smile.

“Find a café, or move into an underground station.”  Mikael glanced over at the Panik table and quietly wished they’d quit shooting death glares at him.  “Worst case just hole up and wait for better weather, do other work.”  Mikael shrugged and gave Christian a weak smile.  “That’s why we save as much as we can.”

“Hello Mikael.”

~0~

Linke jumped, he couldn’t help it.  He’d been focused on Mikael and those pretty green eyes and not noticed one of the Universal suits walking up.  At least it was a familiar suit, but then David Jost was almost as universally known a face as any of the faces of the band he mindered.  And Tokio Hotel was pretty damn well known.

Linke had known that this little square wasn’t far away from the Berlin offices of Universal Music; he’d just chosen to ignore the fact.

“Hello Linke, I didn’t know you knew Mikael.”  Jost smiled and Linke shook the offered hand with a bit of wariness.

“We’ve only barely met.  Timo was a touch indignant on my behalf.”  Linke watched the other musician out of the corner of his eye; Mikael ducked his head to focus on a complex bit of fingering.  Trying to stay out of something, Linke decided.  He just wondered why Mikael was shaking; it wasn’t really _that_ cold out.

“Are you looking for supporting musicians?” Jost asked.  “I had heard there was some discussion on you doing a solo album.”  Linke smiled tightly.

“Right now it’s just talk.  I’m not willing to do anything right now that will take me away from Panik, and touring to support a solo work would do that.”  Paul said Jost was a decent sort, but Linke still hated people harping on him going off on his own.  He’d be damned if he left his friends behind, not even for this.  Jost just laughed.

“You wouldn’t have to tour to support it Linke.  It would likely sell very well all on its own given how popular Panik is becoming overseas without any active promotions at all.  Did Paul tell you there’s a petition from the US for a few shows?”  Linke blinked in surprise.  He’d known the Barcelona show they were set to do in a few weeks was a fan petition, but he’d thought the fan base in the Americas was still rather small.  Jost had moved on though and was asking Mikael something about a board of trust.

“It’s only about a year left on those restrictions, isn’t it? Has the head softened at all on the idea of you being signed?” Mikael’s face looked stiff and his words were a bit stilted.

“Herr Gottschalk refuses to hear of any changes.  And yes, a little less than a year.”  Mikael wouldn’t look at either of them, just stared intently at the fret board of his guitar.  Jost looked down at the bent head a little sadly; it was such a waste of the boy’s talent to have him begging on the street because Gottschalk was a petty viscous bastard.

“The end is near then.  Linke it would be worth it to wait around a little for this one. Mikael Sommer is just as talented as his sister was.” Linke saw David jerk in surprise and Juri scramble for his laptop as he went through the motions of polite conversation.  Linke only broke those civil tenants when Jost invited Mikael to dinner with a protest that he had invited Mikael along with him and his band mates as a thank you for helping them out with a dare.  Jost had looked a bit startled, but had smiled and offered another time, which Mikael had weakly smiled at but didn’t really accept or decline.

When the manager had gone on his way, after Linke noted he’d dropped a large bill in Mikael’s guitar case, the rest of the band trooped over; David in the lead and Timo trailing reluctantly behind.  Linke just watched as Mikael curled around his guitar and shook.  It was Jan who rested a concerned hand on the shaking guitarist’s shoulder and asked if he was okay. Timo looked into the case and let out a low whistle.

Linke was just reaching an arm out to try and calm the shudders that were overtaking the other man and glared at Timo.  But his eyes followed Timo’s pointing finger down and blinked at the distinctive purple of the note lying on top of the scattering of coins.  That sight made Linke catch hold of both of Mikael’s shoulders and give him a firm shake.

“Who is David Jost to you that he leaves five hundred euro notes in your till?”  Mikael just shook harder and couldn’t answer.  He tried but words just wouldn’t form, all he could do was shake his head from side to side.

David frowned and quickly shifted the scattered moneys into the breast pocket on Mikael’s battered jacket and took the guitar and packed it away.  Timo started to protest but fell silent at the stern look David gave him and took the guitar case.

“He’s in shock, Juri,” Juri just nodded and trotted off.  Jan just cuddled in tighter to Mikael’s left side and Linke bracketed him on the right.  He caught one shaking hand and hissed at the icy chill on those fingers. Linke could hear David and Franky having a quick discussion and saw the singer pull out his phone as David turned back to Timo to have a quiet but very intense conversation.

Timo clearly didn’t like what David was asking of him but eventually the rapper agreed, to what Linke had no idea.  He had no chance to ask as Juri came trotting back with a tall travel cup of something that was steaming gently the drummer dropped to one knee and with Linke’s help got Mikael’s hands wrapped around the cup.  From there Mikael seemed willing to just lean on Linke and take tiny sips of the hot tea.

It still felt like forever before the shuddering tremors slackened off into simple shivering.  By then Franky was off the phone and giving David a negative head shake.

“Paul didn’t know,” asked David softly.  “Or wasn’t willing to say?”

“Didn’t know, he’s asking for us.  I just don’t understand,” David dragged Franky out of earshot before Linke could hear what it was that had their singer confused this time.

“We need to get him home,” murmured Juri and Jan nodded agreement.  Linke agreed too but had no idea how to get that information out of a shocky Mikael.  And some part of him wasn’t sure he really wanted to know where Mikael lived.  If he knew he’d be tempted to show up on the other man’s doorstep for a repeat of last night in more hospitable surroundings.  And he didn’t know if the jumpy guitarist was interested.

Timo sighed and set the guitar case down and squatted down to catch Mikael’s eyes.  When Mikael didn’t cooperate by looking up Timo reached out a hand and forced the other man to look at him.

“Where do you live,” it wasn’t quite a demand, but it was far from a polite request.  Linke felt the flinch and started to open his mouth.  Timo didn’t even blink.  “Shut it Chris, I really don’t care where he lives.  But David doesn’t want us to just leave him.”  From the tone of his voice Timo would have been perfectly happy to leave Mikael in a ditch somewhere, but Timo didn’t _do_ moderation when it came to the people he cared about.

“And you don’t think having all six of us looming over him isn’t making him twitchy enough,” Linke snarked, feeling oddly defensive of the thin man huddled into his side.  Mikael was far too thin, leaner even that Linke himself was and the fans were always making worried little comments about his weight so Linke knew he was far too thin by most standards.

“I really don’t give a fuck Chris, we need to know where he lives so we can call a cab to get him there and I don’t see you getting it out of him.”

“You don’t have to call a cab, I’ll be okay.”  Timo’s fierce glare shifted from Linke back to Mikael.

“Bullshit.  You’re whiter than paper and shaking like a fucking leaf in a high wind.  You bug the fuck out of me but David seems to think you’re okay.  Now where do you live?”  An aggravated Timo was a force of nature and this time Mikael whispered an address.

Linke had expected it to be in a shabbier part of town and from the way Timo sat back on his heels he had too, not an older but very wealthy part of Berlin.

“Why the fuck are you so scruffy looking then,” demanded Timo with an extraordinary lack of tact, “rebelling against mommy and daddy?”  The flinch that followed that volley made even Timo stop and look again.  What little color had been in Mikael’s face had drained away and his eyes gone completely dead.

“**Ti**-_mo_!” David snapped and smacked the rapper hard on the back of the head.  “How Mikael dresses is none of your business, you don’t harass Franky over the holes in _his_ jeans.”  Timo had the grace to look a little sheepish. But David was clearly less than pleased.

Franky just grinned sheepishly and looked down at the gaping holes where the knees of his jeans should have been and then rested his eyes on the knees of Mikael’s jeans, worn and faded but still mostly intact.  Linke sighed in quiet frustration when even Franky’s ‘smile with me I’m cute’ face didn’t make Mikael relax.

Linke frowned, Mikael was staring at a bit of concrete at his feet and from the way he was hunching into his jacket he really, _really_ wanted them all too **_please_** just go away. He wondered what Juri had found when he’d googled Mikael’s name; it must have been interesting if David was making the guy a _cause_ and Juri was willing to spring for even something as simple as a mug of tea for a guy he didn’t know.

He’d been waiting for the little twitch away, that little sign that the arm Linke had around his shoulders wasn’t needed anymore.  Linke turned back to Mikael and watched as wary green eyes flicked from one to another of them as the poor guy tried to figure out what they wanted.  Timo was probably the easiest to figure out, he wanted to beat the fuck out of Mikael and walk away.  A motivation that was pretty straightforward and even easy to understand, Timo felt Mikael was hurting one of his friends, end of story. The rest of them though were probably driving the poor guy nuts.

When Timo stood up and stalked over to David and Franky Linke was half expecting a shouting match to start.  Timo didn’t do frustrated well.  Jan and Juri had already shifted to one side to give Mikael some breathing room so when Linke stood to see if he could mediate the brewing fight he expected one or the other of them would keep a weather eye on Mikael.

When Timo finally calmed down Linke realized Juri had been helping him and Jan was over with Franky trying to keep out of the way.  He shot a quick glance around, no guitar case and no Mikael.  Linke scanned the square, only a few teens and evening shoppers were walking around and no-one was lingering, not even in the café with its little heaters in the tables.

“Jan, you remember that address?” Linke felt stupid for asking, but did anyway; Jan just rolled his eyes at Linke and rattled off the address.  Linke flipped open his phone and entered it and waited as the navigation system pulled up the address.  Linke hit the little button on the touch pad for navigate from current location and headed for his car at a very fast walk.

“We’ll meet you there, c’mon Jan.” Juri took off toward his van with Jan right beside him and a confused Franky trailing behind.  Linke didn’t wait to see if David convinced Timo to go too, he had more critical things on his mind.  Not getting flattened by Berlin traffic was only the first one.

~0~ (LJ2)

Mikael was tucking away the last of his take for the day in one of his hidey holes when he thought he heard something odd.  It couldn’t be the cat he’d been feeding, he’d already let it in.  A quick glance around the living room showed him that the black and white tom was curled up snugly in the cheap fleece blanket he’d left in the old wing back chair last night and if the cat wasn’t soundly asleep he was doing a damn good job of faking it.

Then he heard the sound of a car doors slamming shut, not terribly unusual as there were still a few people among his few neighbors who were out and had yet to come home, but Mikael felt uneasy.  After the day he’d had he felt a bit justified in being paranoid, so he walked over to his kitchen window and looked down on the driveways between his house and his older neighbors.  She wasn’t home but his side of the drive had two vehicles in it that he didn’t recognize and Mikael felt a jolt of pure terror go through him when he recognized the cap one of the people walking toward his back door was wearing.  If he’d thought to lock the door he wouldn’t have been so jittery, but he’d left it on the latch after letting the cat in.  And he had fought off two panic attacks in quick succession already.

Mikael headed for the door at a near sprint, hoping against hope that they would just knock and go away, not try the door and find it open.  When he rounded the corner he came face to face with Timo and stopped dead.

“You don’t lock your doors around here,” sneered the rapper as he kicked his shoes off and walked up to glare up at Mikael.  That he was shorter than Mikael wasn’t much comfort right then.

“I had just let the cat in, but normally yes.” Mikael refused to be bullied in his own home, but the shiver that started wasn’t from the cold draft coming in the open doors.  Not now, he begged silently, let me get these people to _go away_ and I can fall apart, just _please_, not **_now_**.  The gods didn’t seem inclined to listen to him today and Mikael bit back a whimper as he watched five other people troop uninvited into his home.

~0~

Jan shut the door behind everyone and shrugged out of his jacket and hung it neatly on an empty hook in the double row of mostly empty hooks by the door.  David was getting everyone else to hang up their jackets as well and was toeing their shoes into a neat row by the baseboard.  Timo was being an ass and Franky and Juri had stepped off to one side to get off the cold tile of the entryway.  Jan smiled a bit at the wide eyed expression on Franky’s face.  Franky hadn’t been in many of the more stately older homes in Berlin, most of the parties they went to were in upscale, trendy places, so he was gaping up at the pressed tin of the ceiling and the carved wood paneling of the walls.

When he heard Linke snarl at Timo to back off Jan looked back around to where their rather unwilling host was standing.  The short sharp breathing and dilated eyes told Jan that he’d been right at the square and the trembling hadn’t just been cold or nerves.

“Timo, _fuck_, back off!  He’s having a panic attack!” Jan grabbed his friend and dragged the confused rapper back away from the kid as his knees came unstrung and he collapsed toward the floor.  Linke was a fast fuck, and Jan was grateful once again for those reflexes as the bassist caught the kid and cradled his shuddering frame close to his chest.  Jan knew all about panic attacks; his cousin Kai had them after he’d been trapped in a collapsed building on a visit to California.  Dark and closed in places would set him off terribly so Jan had learned the signs and the few things he could do to help.

Jan watched grimly as Linke shushed and rocked the shuddering man, then after that didn’t seem to help swept him up in his arms and went prowling to a safe, warm place to put him.

David dropped to his knees beside Timo and Jan let the guitarist take over the explanations, he and Juri had the most information about whoever Mikael was.  Juri’s quick web search had only told Jan that this poor guy was the last member of his family and that his sister had been really famous and a singer until her death in 2001. Timo’s question was one that had been nagging at Jan since they’d walked in the door.

“So if he’s got dough why the fuck does he beg for change on the street and dress like a hobo?”

“Timo, he may not have access to it. Lots of people who look rich live on a very fixed income, I mean, look at us.”  David was right and from the grimace on Timo’s face he knew it.  “And he may not have money; he may only have the house.  We don’t know what kind of restrictions he lives under.”

Jan sighed and got up to go see if he could find Linke, David had Timo pretty well in hand, and the rapper seemed to listening more rationally than he had earlier, even if he **had** had to be dumped on his ass to get his attention.

He found Franky in the kitchen, frowning into the pantry like it had somehow offended him.  Jan took a good look around, it was a nice kitchen and looked to have been updated fairly recently, but it was so clean it looked sterile, almost unused.  Franky walked away from the pantry and started snooping in the cupboards as if he was looking for something in particular.  Jan shrugged and took a peek in the pantry, Franky was a cooking geek he might have just been shocked that things he considered staples weren’t to be found.  What Jan saw was a space bigger than his closet at home with only a few packets of the cheapest sort of package noodles, a few cans of the ten for a euro sort of vegetables and a mostly empty jar of the super cheap bouillon cubes on one shelf.  Those three packets and half dozen cans looked forlorn in the huge space of the pantry.

Jan felt an uneasy chill slide up his spine, even at their worst economic times as a band Panik had never eaten like this.  Jan turned and checked the refrigerator.

The fridge at the band house was always full of veggies, fruit and various leftovers and drinks.  This fridge had leftovers, three small containers neatly labeled and dated and a tightly covered large tin of cat food.  Nothing else, no eggs, no milk, nothing.  Jan checked the freezer.  It was completely empty except for the ice in the bin.  Franky was moving more quickly behind him opening cupboards and drawers and clearly not finding what he expected at all.  Jan turned back just as Frank came almost flying at the fridge.

“There’s nothing in here either,” Jan warned softly.  Franky just gave him a worried look and looked inside himself.  He shut the door again and leaned back on it looking faintly sickened.

“No wonder he’s so thin, there’s _nothing_ in this house.”

“We don’t know that,” Jan started when Franky shook his head and corrected himself.

“Okay, okay.  There’s nothing in this **_kitchen_**.”  Franky raked a hand through his hair.  “One bowl and fork in the sink, a glass on the counter, nothing else.  Jan, how can he _live_ like this?”  Jan shrugged helplessly, he didn’t understand either.

“Jan,” asked Juri from the doorway, and Jan turned grateful for the distraction.  “Timo found this; you know what it’s for?” Jan caught the small bottle Juri tossed him and turned it over.  It was a prescription for a fairly high powered sedative and muscle relaxant.  Jan knew it by name because Kai took it sometimes after a really bad attack.  The prescription was over six months old and the bottle looked pretty full.  Jan opened it, dumped the pills out on the counter and quickly counted.  Twenty six out of a possible thirty, either this guy didn’t have bad attacks often or he was the stubborn sort who didn’t take pills unless he had to.

“It’s to help you sleep after a really bad panic attack.  There weren’t any other bottles; Kai takes anti anxiety pills too, this shouldn’t be it.”  Juri grimly shook his head.

“I think Timo was hoping he’s a druggie, but from the number of refills on that I kinda think he’s not.  And when Linke caught him I could see his arms and they’re clean.”  Jan grimaced, ten refills made him think that if they guy _wanted_ to get stoned he could do it pretty damned easily.  Hell if he took the bottle he could get _dead_ really damned easily.

“Where are Timo and David?”  Jan nudged Franky toward the door, the singer wouldn’t be helping anyone wringing his hands and worrying.

“Upstairs I think, this place is big, but most of it looks like it’s been closed up for years.  There’s a big music room that looks sort of lived in and a living room but other than that it all looks,” Juri shrugged.

“It looks like the owners have left and never came back.” Timo’s voice sounded strained.  Timo didn’t like being wrong about people.  Being fair he was normally an excellent judge of character with only Franky being better at making snap assessments about a person’s trustworthiness.  And Timo was looking at having been very wrong about this guy, and he really was _not_ liking it at all.

“I think I found out why he looks so thin,” David started his hands full of papers.

“Other than he isn’t eating?!” Franky burst out and had to be calmed by Jan and David.

“It looks like his trust covers routine bills,” David spread out a few of the papers on the counter top so they all could see.  “And that he gets a small allowance.” Another paper was laid down.  “But for some reason they aren’t paying for his medical expenses.” A final set of papers was laid down.

Jan picked it up; it was a bill for an outstanding amount that made him wince.  The letter with it was a polite ‘thank you for your payment of, this is still outstanding’ type of note.  Jan looked at the bank statement.  Two hundred Euros had gone in on the first and been withdrawn the second; on the second a payment of three hundred Euros had been made on the hospital bill, paid in cash, in person.  Jan set the papers back down so the rest of the guys could read them as well.

“Why isn’t he working though, he shouldn’t have to be starving himself to death to pay this.  Hell they should be paying this, not him.”  Their record label had paid to transport Timo to the hospital when part of the stage had collapsed under him last year and he’d taken a bad fall.  They had covered all the costs for the visit too, and even though Timo had only been observed overnight and had a few stitches and some antibiotics it had been a hefty sum, far less than the total circled in red ink on this bill.  It just didn’t make sense.

“Maybe he has to submit other bills and he hasn’t?” offered Franky, David shook his head.

“Somebody had to authorize treatment.”  Timo looked up from the hospital bill, “Someone had to okay him getting some of this stuff, his finger traced over a line item of the bill.  If you need these drugs you’re so damn sick you want to die.”  He raked both hands through his short hair.  “This is so fucked up.  All this **stuff** and the poor fucker can’t even sell it I bet.”

Jan gave Juri a puzzled look and the drummer just hugged him close and whispered.  “Gold records on the walls, music and band memorabilia, instruments, all kinds of things in the music room.  Stuff that would go for a lot of cash to a collector,” Juri sighed sadly and hugged Jan tight, clearly shaken by some of what he’d seen.  Jan shivered, suddenly the house felt like a cage, a lovely gilded cage where you could so easily starve if no one remembered to feed you.

~0~

Linke glared at the cat who gave him a baleful yellow eyed stare right back.  Linke had just laid Mikael down on the couch and wound the worn blankets he’d found neatly folded in a chair around him and had been looking for something else warm to cover the shivering guitarist with when he’d seen the corner of another blanket hanging over the arm of another chair.  He hadn’t expected the chair to be occupied with over seven kilos of grumpy, beat up old black and white tom cat.  Fortunately he’d only gotten growled at not clawed when he’d put his hand on the cat’s blanket. 

Linke might outweigh the cat by almost a factor of ten but he was no fool.  This wasn’t like David’s cat, lazy, affectionate and well loved, this was a streetwise survivor.  The notched ears and scarred square face was not one of an animal that would put up with any bullshit.  Why it was curled up inside only made Linke wonder who owned who.  If Mikael owned the cat or the cat owed Mikael, idly Linke hoped the cat wasn’t the ‘one person must kill everyone else’ sort of cat like the one Jan’s grandmother had.  That great gray monster liked three people, Jan, Jan’s grandmother and Timo, everyone else had learned to steer clear on pain of bloodied fingers.

The yellow eyes blinked at him then the great black and white monster curled back up and rested his chin on his tucked up paws and watched, purring in a way that was anything but comforting to Linke.  He turned and looked to see if there was any other way to warm the chilly room.  He didn’t see any radiators like he had in the hallway.

Fireplace, Linke walked over and dropped to one knee to look over the huge old looking brick fireplace.  On closer inspection it wasn’t really all that old, and the piled logs in the grate were the ceramic sort used in a gas fireplace.  Linke found the gas key and a cup of wooden splinters, but no matches.  He went rummaging in his pockets for the lighter he’d been carrying for Jan.  After coming up with it Linke reached back and opened the flue and hissed slightly at the sudden chill draft that wafted its way up the chimney.  A quick turn and the gas was on; carefully he lit a splinter and reached it in.

A *whumph* of igniting gas and a wave of heat was his reward.  Linke sat back and blew out the splinter with a bit of relief.  After a bit of fiddling he got the flames to the level he remembered put out the most heat in his parent’s fireplace and turned back to the couch.

Mikael had curled himself into a tight shivering knot and the cat had jumped down from his chair and stalked over to the couch to jump up by Mikael’s head.  The dainty *hurMreaow* that came out of the blocky cat’s mouth made him stifle a snicker.  Big ugly cat, sweet little kitty voice, oh the irony.  But the cat got a better reaction than Linke had.  Mikael uncurled a little and reached a shaking hand up to rub the big cat’s notched ears.

“Hey Mauser, I’m okay boy,” Mikael murmured softly to the cat as the animal made himself a comfy spot in the hollow by Mikael’s belly and after kneading it into submission with his big paws curled up close and purred as Mikael gently stroked his square head.  Linke knew he was being deliberately ignored, because he’d seen those haunted green eyes flick over to where he was standing twice as the cat was getting settled.

Linke padded over and curled up on the floor by Mikael’s head and stroked the hair away from his face with gentle fingers.  The patch of white was just as fine and soft as the brown and Linke pondered why he’d though it would be otherwise.

“Why are you being nice to me,” came the question Linke had been half expecting.

“Is there a reason I shouldn’t be, you haven’t really done anything to warrant me being nasty.”  Linke kept up the gentle strokes.  He could hear the others talking faintly from the kitchen and wondered what had made Timo of all of them sound so unhappy, Jan was more the emotional type even if what he _showed_ and what he _felt_ weren’t always remotely similar.

“I played your stuff without asking,” Linke had to smile at that.  Doing covers was a weird thing for musicians, Panik covered songs as a form of respect.  If he personally covered a song it was because something about it had spoken to him at some deep level.  But to make money off a cover, well that was different.  If the artist was dead it wasn’t much of a big deal, as long as credit was given.  Living artists though, that got sticky quick.  Most of the songs they covered live were done with permission.  The rest Timo’s big mouth made sure the audience knew who originally played it.  Some they played with the original artist’s right there, the Killerpilze shows had been an absolute blast because they got to watch Mäx and Jo laughing their asses off as David and Timo tried to match their sound. 

Linke smiled, he’d laughed so hard he’d almost fallen off the stage when they had tried playing Revolution, four guys just could not match the sound of six and Jo just could not rap to save his soul.

“It’s not like your selling a CD and claiming it’s your work.  I’ll admit my first reaction to hearing you wasn’t very civilized, but you crediting kind of knocked the wind out of my sails.”

The cat let out a *merouf* sound as he was dislodged to the floor by Mikael’s reaction.  Linke moved up onto the couch when Mikael sat up and turned.  He smiled into those startled green eyes and reached up a hand he only just noticed was a bit sooty to cup a cheek.

“What, when,” Mikael stopped babbling and took a couple deep breaths as Linke scootched a little closer.

“Yesterday, before the club.  I saw you in the square playing.”  Mikael twitched a little away from Linke’s reaching hand, so Linke settled his arm on the back of the couch and watched.

“I’m surprised you didn’t yell; I had a lot of requests for your stuff yesterday.”  Mikael wasn’t looking at Linke, or after the cat that had gone prowling toward the kitchen after being dumped off the couch, or even the fire.  He was staring down at the floor, twisting his hands in the worn folds of the blanket covering his lap.

“I saw that,” agreed Linke, he wasn’t sure what he was waiting for, just that it wasn’t the right time to make the move he wanted.  “What I don’t understand is why you’re a street musician and not a bartender.”

That got him a wry smile and a faintly bitter sounding laugh.  “Trust restrictions.  Was meant to not force me to _have to_ work, but Gottschalk chooses to read it as I _can’t_ work.”  A quick little shrug and a quirk of his eyebrow told Linke that this was something Mikael had gotten used to.  “Busking and temping isn’t _real_ work.”  Linke watched as Mikael stood and started pacing in front of the fire and wondered if the sudden silence from the kitchen meant the guys were listening in.

~0~

The feel of those eyes following him was starting to make Mikael’s skin crawl.

“Are you okay?”  The tone was mild and laced with what sounded like genuine concern.  Mikael turned to give his uninvited guest an incredulous stare.

“Am I okay? Yes, no,” Mikael threw his hand up in frustration.  “Hell, I don’t know.  I’ve had the fact I’m unobservant as all fuck shoved up my nose.”  That got him a questioning look, which made Mikael huff air up through his bangs and go back to pacing.

“Lessee,” he started ticking points off on his hands. “Totally miss that a band I like, listen to and admire is partying in the bar I sometimes work at.  Worse I don’t register the guy who hits on me is the bassist for said band, I don’t even buy a clue when he backs me into the corner under the DJ booth that Nikki and Lukas always use to sneak a quick make out session.  I don’t even get it when he damn near fucks me into the wall.  No.  I have to be _fucking **oblivious**_ until his rapper buddy catches me playing one of his songs and threatens to feed me my liver.”  Mikael turned back from his pacing to glare at Linke as he rubbed his cold hands on his arms and asked scathingly.  “In that situation would **_you_** be okay?”

Linke blinked and gave him a crooked grin.  “Probably not, but this isn’t me.  And you left out getting hit on by a record producer and having a panic attack.”

“Two,” corrected Mikael.

“**_What_**?”  Linke rose and walked over putting his hands on Mikael’s shoulders.  Mikael sighed and came clean.

“I had two panic attacks; your friend getting in my face after the fight last night set one off in the square.”  Mikael ducked his head to escape the worried slate blue stare Linke was giving him.  “I’d only been home long enough to let Mauser in and stash today’s take away.”

“So you haven’t eaten yet.” It wasn’t a question, but he shook his head ‘no’ in answer anyway.

“I wouldn’t have fed you your liver,” came Timo’s wry voice.  “My fist maybe.  The other would have been way to bloody and Davii faints at the sight of blood.”  Timo scrubbed one hand sheepishly through the hair at the nape of his neck before he continued.  “I overreacted, sorry.”

Mikael had the feeling that this sort of apology wasn’t usual from the way Linke blinked.  He swallowed hard and soft answered.  “It’s okay, if it was one of my fr, friends work getting butchered I’d have been pissed too.”  That got him a wry grin from the blocky rapper and to his surprise the sight of David and Jan both smiling around the corner at him.

Now that the worst appeared to be over they all came into the living room, and found places to sit.  Mauser followed Jan in and once the blond was settled he jumped into his lap to demand petting. Mikael felt reassured by that, Mauser was picky as hell about who he allowed to touch him.

“Franky and Juri went to get food.” David didn’t look the slightest bit abashed as he admitted, “we went snooping in your kitchen.  Franky was appalled.”  Mikael wanted to be offended, and suspected that they had snooped in a lot more than his kitchen, but right now he didn’t want to think very hard about what else they snooped though.

“If what you let the fans see on the KYTE viewer is anything to go by I can imagine.  I don’t think there’s anything in the pantry but some Ramen and canned corn.”  Mikael didn’t bother going over to a chair, he just curled up on the rug in front of the fireplace.  To his discomfort Linke chose to settle on the floor near him.

Why were these guys being so nice to him?

~0~

Linke watched David arguing classical music and a modern pianist’s variations with Mikael and tried not to smile. Once they’d finally gotten Mikael to relax, which had been a task in and of itself and had taken Linke swapping his full beers for Mikael’s empty ones until the other guitarist had drunk three more than anyone else, he’d proved to be just as stubborn as David and as determinedly opinionated as Timo.  Even better David was saying outrageous things just to see how Mikael would react.  Timo was curled up in a ball in one chair laughing so hard he had tears streaming down his face.

“**_Oh for_**… get **real**!Linzencaff is a _noodler_, a cataleptic _three year old_ plays better piano, and you know it.”  Mikael threw both hands in the air and leaned back into the couch, waiting for David’s rebuttal.  David just grinned and toasted Mikael with his beer.  It was amusing watching David prod Mikael into arguing points just for the sake of hearing them.

Jan, who knew all too well David’s opinion of the musician in question ranked her a damn sight worse than incompetent just fell over onto Juri and laughed. 

Juri just grunted sleepily as Jan pounded a fist into his gut and caught the offending hand before it got any more blows in, even weakened by laughter Jan packed a pretty good wallop.  He’d been pretty comfortable sprawled out on his back on the rug, it was thick and soft and the fire was warm.  He had a full belly, good beer and Jan was nearby, life was good.

Franky though had lost the battle with sleep and was dozing in one of the huge wing back chairs, his legs thrown over one arm and his head leaned back into the padded wing.  Mauser had curled up on Franky’s stomach and was either purring in his sleep or snoring.

Linke smiled as David went down another of his odd little conversational tangents, he was learning a huge amount about the slender man.  Relaxed he had very expressive body language and an absolutely devastating smile.  Sober Linke didn’t think they’d have gotten Mikael to relax and talk to them like he was, but after being plied with the fruity beer Jan liked (for the taste he swore, not the insanely high alcohol content) he’d let down a few barriers.

They’d learned that the man who headed Mikael’s trust was a petty bastard, and the medical bills Mikael was paying down were from a severe bought of pneumonia he’d been hit with last winter.  He’d petitioned the trust council for payment of the bill, but been refused without even getting a hearing.  It left Linke with a sour taste in his mouth, but a tremendous respect for Mikael’s determination and integrity.  He knew a lot of people who would have just shrugged it off and not tried to pay down the bill at all.

They’d also learned that Mikael had very few close friends.  The DJ pair that Jan had chatted with at the club, the three regular barkeeps, a photographer and a handful of musicians that played around the city either in small bands or as street performers.  He had no living family, at least none he or his trust council knew about.

Linke already knew he was at least bi-sexual if not full out gay, and that he was beautiful when he came.

The yawn that snuck out took Linke completely by surprise, and when he checked the time on his phone he was startled to see it was almost four in the morning.  No wonder Franky was out and Juri dozing.  It also explained how silly the rest of them were getting.  They’d been awake for over thirty hours on a short night’s sleep.

Timo rolled out of his chair and stalked unsteadily over to where David was curled in one corner of the couch and crawled up beside him.  David smiled happily at Timo and cuddled tight to his best friend, giggling a bit when Timo flopped over backwards on the couch and tugged the guitarist down to lay sprawled over his chest.

“Sleepy, you’re being silly.”  Timo just grunted at David, and David was punch drunk enough to just giggle as he snuggled down beside Timo.

Linke smiled faintly but was surprised when Mikael rose and went over to a cupboard under the bookcases that flanked the fireplace and lined most of one long wall.  There was a hiss of a vacuum releasing and the rustle of heavy plastic before Mikael came back out with an armload of what looked like heavy wool plush blankets.  He knit his eyebrows together in confusion for a moment before he realized that Mikael had come to some sort of personal decision.  Linke watched quietly as Mikael tucked one of the blankets around Franky, eliciting a sleepy mumble from the singer and a soft feline chirp from the cat.  He went on to tuck another around Jan and Juri and the last covered Timo and David.

Mikael went back to the cupboard and after another hiss and rustle of plastic came out with several smallish traveling type pillows that he let Juri and Timo muzzily tuck under their own heads before cuddling their partners and dropping into sleep.  Linke puzzled over the fact that there were nicer blankets and pillows easily to hand but Mikael still used what were clearly well worn versions.  He was still thinking when Linke felt the heavy weight of a blanket go around his own shoulders, and he was exhausted enough to just go with it and let Mikael coax him into lying down on the thick rug and tuck a small pillow under his head.

Linke tried not to succumb to sleep but the last thing he saw as his mind shut down and his eyes closed was Mikael quietly gathering up the empty beer bottles and empty pizza boxes.

~0~

The sound of something rumbling in his ear gradually woke Juri.  He grimaced a bit, trying to place the sound without having to actually wake up fully.  It wasn’t Jan snoring, Jan only snored if he was congested and lying on his back, and Juri could feel Jan snuggled tight into his side with an arm and leg holding Juri securely in place.  Juri blinked and made his eyes focus on the ceiling.  Not a ceiling he knew, the elaborately figured pressed tin panels weren’t familiar at all, so; not the band house, not home and not a hotel room.  Hotels painted their ceilings and hotels normally had squashy soft beds not the firm surface under his shoulders.

Juri lifted his head a little and looked around, the rumbling was explained.  It came from the great monster of a cat that had decided it liked Jan last night.  With a purr like that Juri wondered how anyone could sleep.  He looked around a bit more.  Timo and David were tangled up in each other on the sofa; Juri could see both their shirts from last night on the floor beside the sofa and suspected they’d sleep stripped again.  A look to his right and he found Franky still curled in the huge wing back chair he’d fallen asleep in last night.  He looked like a little kid curled up in the seat like that.

He then looked to the left, toward the fireplace and found Mikael asleep on his side facing them.  Juri blinked several times to make sure his eyes weren’t still blurry and deceiving him.  They weren’t, Linke was spooned up behind Mikael with an arm securely wound around the slender man’s waist.

Well, **that** was an interesting development.  Juri didn’t think Mikael would be the sort who would relax enough to let a near stranger cuddle him like that. 

Then Juri smiled at a memory, the first time he and Jan had had to share a bed was long before they were lovers.  The hotel had made a hash of their reservations and instead of a room with two full beds they had gotten a room with a single king size bed.  They’d started out on opposite sides with a wide gap in between but by the next morning were wound around each other in the middle.  Embarrassed they’d swapped roommates the next night only to learn that the others had been stuck in a similar situation.  Franky apparently fell asleep and didn’t move even when Jan had cuddled into his side, Linke proved to be just as bad an attack snuggler as Jan only with longer limbs and pointy elbows.  The third night he’d roomed with Jan again, on the grounds that if Jan snored Juri could stuff him in a pillowcase and use him as a pillow.  Linke was just too damn bony.

Jan hadn’t snored.

Six months later when they found themselves again having to share a bed due to a hotel fuck up they hadn’t bothered with ‘sides’, just accepted the inevitable and cuddled together in the middle.  Juri smiled a little at the memory, they kissed each other for the first time that night.

A little sniffle from Jan had Juri lying back down and pulling the blanket more securely around them.  They didn’t have to be anywhere today, the signing wasn’t until tomorrow night so he could afford to just lay there and cuddle until Jan woke up.

~0~

Franky woke with a start and almost fell out of the chair, fortunately it was a big chair and he only reeled a bit before catching his balance again.  A quick glance left and he saw Juri and Jan cuddled together, Jan was dead to the world but Juri gave him a sleepy sort of good morning smile.  A look right and he found a mostly awake Timo stroking his fingers through a still zonked out David’s hair.  David wasn’t completely asleep; asleep he didn’t make those happy little chirpy purr noises.  Awake he didn’t either, and awake he’d hotly deny he made _any_ sort of chirpy cute sounds for _anyone_ for _any _reason.

It was kind of cute, and Timo was just as bad if their positions were reversed.

Franky yawned and stretched as he tried to figure out what woke him.  His shoulders were a little stiff but not too bad considering he’d apparently slept all night in a chair.  He stood up and stretched again looking around for their de facto host and Linke, all he saw was a set of abandoned bedding with the cat curled up in the middle.

The sound of a key in a lock and a door opening gave him a clue; it must have been a car door slamming closed that had awakened him.  Linke must have awakened earlier and gone out to get breakfast for them.  Franky could get behind breakfast; dinner had been long enough ago that his stomach was complaining bitterly about its empty state.  He padded quietly toward the kitchen to see what Linke had gotten and if he needed any help.

Franky didn’t expect to walk in and find Linke backing Mikael into the refrigerator trying to get a kiss.  Linke tended to go after what he wanted pretty directly, but Franky had never seen him focus all his attention on a guy before.  Sure, he knew Linke was bi, had even met a couple of Linke’s friends with benefits male friends, but he’d never _seen_ him putting these kind of moves on anyone before.

Mikael didn’t seem like he was unwilling, just like he was, Franky paused to chew on that thought.  Like he was shy, Franky decided.  Then Mikael saw him and flinched slightly, Linke looked up and over and saw Franky as well and after a sheepish sigh and wry grin he stepped back, letting Mikael duck away and go back to emptying the cloth bags on the counter into the fridge and pantry.

“The others up yet,” asked Linke as he watched Mikael pull down a kettle and fill it with water to heat for tea.

“Juri is, sort of, and Timo is.  Timo’s waking David and I think Jan is still out.” Franky shrugged a little. “All I could see was a tuft of blond curls glued to Juri’s side.”  His hands twitched as he saw a toaster come out and thick slices of bread getting dropped in.  This wasn’t the kitchen of the band house or even the tiny kitchen of Timo’s apartment, Franky didn’t think he had a lot of right to barge in and help.  They’d kind of done enough of **that** already.

“I went by Timo’s and grabbed our bags,” Linke said as he shifted to an out of the way spot by the sink.  Only then did Franky register that the green striped jumper Linke was wearing wasn’t the one he’d had on yesterday.  Mikael was also dressed differently, his jeans were still worn and faded but once upon a time these had been black and his oversize jumper was a brighter green than yesterdays. 

“Thanks,” Franky smiled.  Clearly Linke had already gotten a shower; maybe they could each beg one as well.

“Do Timo and David eat eggs,” asked Mikael, “or cheese? I know they’re vegetarian,’ Mikael’s voice trailed off and he gave a small helpless looking shrug.  “I don’t have any vegetarian friends other than Tara and she’s vegan.”

“Not the same thing,” agreed Linke with a nod.

“They both eat eggs in moderation and dairy.  David would die without cheese on his pizza.” Franky smiled, he’d had a trial of it figuring out what soy alternatives were any good and when you just couldn’t substitute at all and get anything edible.  Timo and David were pretty mellow about the whole thing, although Timo would prod at all of them to eat more vegetables.  “David’s more a ‘doesn’t eat meat’ person, Timo’s more the real vegetarian but they both are pretty cool about things.”  Franky fidgeted a bit as he watched Mikael pulling pans out.  “Um, can I help?” his voice was tentative; he had no idea how Mikael felt about another cook in his kitchen.  The relived smile that bloomed over Mikael’s face though told him his help was welcome.

“I’m not that great a cook.  I mean I can boil water for pasta and soup and make toast and fry an egg,” a wry little half shrug made Franky smile back in understanding.  “I’m no cook, and I **_know_** it.” The soft scoffing sound from Linke made them both turn.  The lanky bassist had both hands resting on the counter on either side of him as he leaned back into the sink.

“If Frank didn’t cook we’d live on vegetable platters and take out, trust me.  Jan’s dangerous just making tea and toast and the rest of us aren’t any better than you are.”  The toaster popped and Linke moved to pull the toasted slices out and put fresh bread in.  As Linke started buttering his toast the kettle whistled and Mikael moved to deal with it as Franky stepped up to fry a few eggs.

The rest of the guys wandered in as soon as the smell of food hit their noses.  It wasn’t all that spectacular of a meal, eggs and toast, a bit of bacon and some fruit with tea.  It was even fairly comfortable, with Mikael asking intelligent questions about some venue issues that had actually hit the media and Jan managing to be nosy without being overbearingly so.  They probably would have lingered on talking if there hadn’t been a sharp knock at the back door.

Mikael jumped, clearly did some math in his head and yelped, “Wednesday, fuck,” as he lurched up from his seat and shot down the hall toward the door.  Linke rose and followed at a slightly slower pace leaving the rest of them to wonder what was wrong with Wednesdays.

~0~

Linke wasn’t sure what he expected but a chubby cheeked older lady and a young girl certainly wasn’t it.

“Frau Keller, my apologies.  I had some friends come into town unexpectedly, and completely forgot about Anneliese’s piano lesson.  Please, come in.” Mikael ushered the woman and sulky faced girl inside with a wan smile and weak shrug for Linke.

Linke quirked an eyebrow up, but managed one of his polite professional smiles for the matron when he was introduced.  He managed a partial truth when the woman asked why he was in town, saying he and his band mates were in Berlin for a bit of promotional work and that Mikael had offered them a place to sleep for the nights they were in town.  Not a _complete_ lie.  They were going to do a signing tomorrow night and a magazine photo shoot on Friday, and they _had_ slept here last night even if it hadn’t exactly been planned.

Frau Keller told her daughter to go on in to the music room and Mikael had asked her to please start on her scales while he and her mother talked briefly.  The girl huffed out a great sigh and half stomped her way back to where Linke now knew there was a piano.  He leaned against the wall and listened as the woman talked quickly with Mikael and handed over a small envelope.  Apparently she was pleased, because she mentioned something about a school now accepting the girl for further teaching now that Mikael had done the ground work.

Mikael had started to protest but the woman firmly shushed him and basically bullied him into accepting whatever was in that envelope before giving him a motherly kiss on the cheek and telling him she’d be back in an hour to collect her child.  Mikael closed the door behind her and leaned his head against the door with a weary sigh.

“I only just got up, and it’s already been a long day.”  Linke snorted a bit, that girl looked like a world class brat.  Mikael stood back up and turned the direction the girl had gone.  “Bathrooms are upstairs, towels and such are in the cupboards, let your friends know they are welcome to use them if they like.” The sound of a child pounding on piano keys made them both wince. “And let me go rescue my piano.” With a second wan smile Mikael trotted off to moderate the girl’s heavy handedness.

After a moment of thought Linke went back to the kitchen and passed the message along, and told the rest of the guys their bags were in his car.  Franky and Jan both jumped at the chance for a shower and clean clothes.  Jan had promised they’d grab everyone’s things as he and Frank went to Linke’s car.

David winced as a particularly bad run sounded far too loudly.

“Piano lesson,” Linke murmured in a sotto voice. “I don’t think the student is enthralled to be here either.” They both flinched at the discordant sound and the heavy silence that followed.

“I’d say not, ugh.  What did that poor instrument do to deserve being pounded on like that?”

Linke shrugged and said nothing as Franky and Jan came back in and handed off Timo, Juri and David’s bags to their owners.  A quick round of rock, paper, scissors decided bathing order and Timo and Jan trooped upstairs in search of the bathrooms Mikael had mentioned.  Juri just shrugged and started rinsing the dishes.

David stared meditatively in the direction of the music room, and then shared a look with Linke.  Linke nodded quietly, he was curious too.  Together they walked toward the soft sound of Brahms.

~0~

“So why so unhappy today Anna,” asked Mikael as he played quietly.  Normally the girl wasn’t so heavy handed.

“Mutti says I can’t go to the concert with Anja and Ines, and she’d **_promised _**I could go if I got good grades.”

“And did you bring home 1’s this time,” Mikael prompted, knowing that last time she’d brought her grades home there had been some 3’s in very bad places.

“Mostly,” the girl hedged.

“Mostly?” Mikael made sure he didn’t smile, just appeared to focus on his hands on the piano keys.

“There was a 2 in maths, but Frau Metzler **_hates_** me.  It would have been a 1 if she’d have been fair.”  Mikael grimaced at that, he’d met the woman and she had no tolerance for anything but absolute perfection.  She loved her subject but wasn’t the best at _teaching_ it, or instilling that love in her students.  For someone who already had a love of math she could do amazing things, for kids who didn’t love math she was a plague to be endured.

“It wouldn’t have anything to do with the fact the concert is on a Tuesday night and you have school the next day,” he asked gently and watched as the girl fell silent and appeared to be thinking about that.

“But Anja and Ines are going,” she finally protested.  Mikael stopped playing and turned to fully face Anna.

“Are they? Or did they just say they are to make you jealous?” Mikael wouldn’t have put it past either of the other two girls to do something like that.  They might be friends, but they were still rather spoiled and sheltered twelve year old girls.

“Which concert,” came David’s puzzled voice from the door way.  He was looking like he was wracking his brain to figure out who was playing in Berlin Tuesday.  Linke was behind him leaning against the door frame and just watching.  Anna gulped and answered meekly.

“Tokio Hotel.”

David’s face cleared and he smiled, Mikael stifled a groan.  David could probably talk girls into or out of whatever he wanted using that smile.  Linke just rolled his eyes as David bounced into the room and followed at a more sedate pace.

“The one next week?  Franky wants to go to that one if we have time.” David perched on the end of the piano bench and smiled sweetly down at Anna.  His hair was a rumpled mop, his shirt was on inside out and his jeans were creased from being slept in and he was charming the girl without even trying. 

Mikael just shook his head and smiled.  At least David was nudging Anna out of her sulks and back toward doing her scales.  Before long David had managed to nudge things back around and Anna was working diligently between them.

He didn’t register when Franky led Frau Keller in to retrieve her daughter, he was to focused on the three part melody they were doing with David on the bass end and him on the treble letting Anna carry the middle in a bouncy little children’s tune.

Mikael laughed as they finished, it might not have been exactly what he’d initially planned for the lesson but it did to the job.  At least now Anna would be far more diligent in practicing at home.

~0~

Linke settled himself on a stool to watch.  Watching David play was always entertaining, and watching him trying to teach was that much more so.  He also was enjoying the chance to watch Mikael.  Where David was impatient and meticulous Mikael was calm.  The girl seated between them seemed to do well having one endlessly patient teacher on her right and one almost hyper teacher on her left.  David was an extraordinary musician, he just had fits slowing down enough to really **_teach_** and it was funny to Linke to watch David in translation.  And that was essentially what Mikael was doing; he was translating David so little Anna could understand.  Linke rested his elbows on his knees and cupped his chin in one hand and just watched.

He’d seen Timo come to check; then Jan and Juri had peeked around the corner and grinned at him.  Jan had done his bit of pantomime that meant Franky was cooking and after Linke had acknowledged that with a nod and a quick thumbs up they had disappeared again.

Franky showed up escorting Anna’s mother, and from the blush coloring the singer’s cheeks Linke was betting he’d made the mistake of being charming when he’d opened the door.  He and Jan both had that problem with older women, they’d be charming without thinking and if they weren’t careful they got hauled off for cookies and milk and god knew what all else.

Thank god Anna had to go to her ballet class to get to or they’d never have been able to rescue Franky from Frau Keller.

David went to find Timo and Linke didn’t bother to ask where Juri and Jan had gotten off to.  He just resettled himself comfortably on the stool and watched quietly as Mikael sat back down at the piano and idly began playing.

At first it wasn’t anything in particular, just wandering bits and chords.  But Linke was content to just watch.  Mikael was like David in that when he was playing he forgot anyone else was there.  His hair might not be the fine textured mop that David’s was but right now it was just as untidy and fell over Mikael’s eyes in a way that made Linke’s fingers itch to push it back.

Mikael jerked his chin to one side and shook the worst of the brown and white fall away from his face and focused a bit more on his hands.  Slowly his wanderings settled into the familiar notes of Für Elise.  Linke found that piece calming and had lost track of how many times David had used it and selected bits of Strauss and Gerhardt to calm himself down after an argument.  This variation though wasn’t one he’d heard before, and it sounded rather more somber than Linke was used to.

The ringing of a phone jolted them both out of the trance of the music.

Linke didn’t have time to do more than straighten before Mikael was gone.

~0~

Mikael hung up the phone with a sigh and forced himself to not scream and throw the innocent bit of plastic across the hall.  **_Now_** he was getting a hearing in front of the trust counsel. Gottschalk had made some noises about him wanting ‘excessive amounts of money’ and someone had decided to call him on the carpet.  He leaned his head on his arm against the wall and focused on his breathing, trying to force the rage back down into its box.  He couldn’t afford to get angry right now, it would just set off another attack.  One he’d have to drug himself to calm down from and if he did that there was no way he’d be able to wake in time to get to the transit station for the long trip across town to the banks trust offices.  He just hoped to god they weren’t about to cut his stipend again.

In, out, in, out.  He counted in his head one to ten on each inhalation and each exhalation, first in German, then English and then as best he could in stumbling Spanish and French and then started over.  He ignored the tears leaking out, they weren’t important right now.

When Mikael thought he had control again he all but sprinted upstairs to Alexei’s old office, his office, and the desk.  He froze in the doorway with a jolt when he saw the papers he needed all already laying out.  Had he forgotten to file them away, he walked stiffly to the chair and slumped into it.  No, he’d had them out, but not it this order.  He raked his hands through his hair and clenched them into tight painful fists as he fought down a sob of frustrated anger.

Even if they read them it didn’t mean anything.  He knew what the media published about their finances and contracts, how was this different?  In his head he still screamed it **was** different, he wasn’t famous throughout Germany.  No one _cared_ about him it **had** to be different.  It had to be.

Why did they have to be nice to him, why did he have to like them as people, why the hell couldn’t they have just walked away and left him the hell alone?!

Mikael buried his face in his folded arms and tried to stop the sobs of frustration and rage.  He was fine alone; he didn’t need anyone’s help.  He’d been doing fine alone since he was fourteen and nothing had changed.  They hadn’t wanted to help him then and he didn’t need it now.  Not from anyone, no matter how good it felt to be touched and held he didn’t need it.  No matter what they couldn’t stay, wouldn’t stay, they had obligations, lives and so did he.  No one ever stayed.

Nothing had changed.

~0~

Linke wandered out of the music room and went hunting Mikael.  He found Timo wearing an odd look on his face in the hallway.

“Timo,” Linke started when the rapper fixed him with a penetrating look.

“I don’t think that guy is as well wrapped as he puts on.”  Linke rocked back on his heels and blinked.

“What do you mean,” Linke asked as he watched the play of emotions behind his friend’s eyes.  Timo appeared to chew on his thoughts for a while before he answered, but Linke was used to that and waited for Timo to find the word he wanted.

“That phone call, it wasn’t good news.  It sounded like he was getting called in to some meeting.  Dunno what, but he was really pissed and unhappy about it whatever it was.”  Their eyes locked and Timo scrubbed at the back of his head, clearly the rapper had heard something and was now hugely uncomfortable with it. 

Living as closely as they did they had had to learn to be selectively deaf and blind at times, just so they could avoid learning more than they really wanted about each other’s business.  Usually they would go outside for calls they wanted to be private or lock themselves in their rooms.  It didn’t always work, but they each did their best.  Linke realized they’d been doing rather a lot more snooping and eavesdropping than would ever have been acceptable in the band house.

They owed Mikael a rather large apology, for several things.

“Did you see,” Linke started and Timo nodded pointing up the stairs before Linke could finish the question.  Linke sighed and trotted up the stairs, David was really better at this, but he’d been the inadvertent start of the whole mess so he should at least try and fix it.

He didn’t find Mikael on the first floor, and found himself feeling guilty for opening doors to look so he went back to the stairs and went up again. The sounds of strangled sobs directed him to a room just off the landing.  Linke sped up his steps and found Mikael curled against a desk with his face buried in one arm and the other curled over his head like he was trying to shield himself from a blow.

Linke hoped it wasn’t another panic attack, he’d seen how much they took out of Jan’s cousin.  This many so close together had to be driving Mikael into the ground.  He’d just gotten to Mikael’s side and was reaching for his shoulder when Mikael asked.

“What were you hoping to find.”

Linke’s hand froze mere centimeters away from touching.  “David found the papers, he, um, _we_ were worried.”  That provoked a bitter sounding bark of laughter.

“I’m fine. Was fine, will be fine.”  Okay, anger was understandable, even expected; the tear streaked face that turned toward him was not.  Linke’s hand dropped onto Mikael’s shoulder as Linke went to one knee beside his chair.

“You don’t look fine,” the instant the words were out of his mouth Linke knew he’d said something wrong.  Those wounded green eyes lit from within with a wild sort of rage and Linke found himself flat on his back with a furious Mikael over him. 

“I don’t need your help.”

Linke wasn’t sure if the bump he’d just given his head or if it was just that a furious Mikael was an incredible turn on, but he felt a bit dazed with those wild green eyes only centimeters from his own.  In either case Linke reached up and pulled that angry face down a bit closer and leaning up kissed Mikael.  At first Mikael kissed back with that same hot abandon he had in the club and Linke groaned into it as he felt Mikael’s lean hard body grinding down into him.

Then he had a hand firmly shoving him shoving him back away and into the floor hard enough to drive the air from his lungs.

“I am **_not_** one of your little groupies.” With that savage observation Mikael shoved himself up and away from Linke and stalked out of the room with long angry strides.

“Hey!” Linke yelled breathlessly after him, but by the time he’d rolled to his feet to follow, irritation simmering at the accusation, Mikael was already long gone.  Linke fumed, he didn’t fuck groupies, especially not male ones.

“Linke,” called Franky’s voice up the stairwell.

“**_Fu-uck_**,” swore Linke in frustration as he turned to go back downstairs.  Part of him badly wanted to find Mikael and figure out just what the fuck the other man’s problem was, he’d been trying to apologize damn-it!

When he hit the ground floor landing Franky was there with a perplexed look on his face. And Linke knew that his snarled ‘_what_’ wasn’t what the singer deserved but couldn’t stop it.  Franky just blinked and gulped before answering.

“Bravo wants us again.”

“**_Today_**!?” Linke swore savagely under his breath, much as he appreciated how much Bravo did for them their timing absolutely _sucked_.

“Yeah, in a couple hours.  David was picking up the living room and we were gonna say bye to Mikael, but Timo said he got a call,” Franky’s voice to an inquiring lilt at the end.  Linke raked his hands through his hair and sighed.

“Yeah, some sort of bad news, he was upstairs.”

Franky gave him a smile and trotted halfway up the first flight before turning back to Linke.  “Then I’ll go say bye for us okay?” Franky was gone up the stairs before Linke could warn him that might not be a good idea.

~0~

Mikael curled in the window seat overlooking the driveway and hugged Felix a little tighter to his chest.  He hadn’t needed the old stuffed dragon in years, not since that horrible year his parents had died and Alexei had become his whole world.  Mikael knew he was being rude and unreasonable but he really couldn’t find the energy to care.

The men downstairs weren’t his friends, in another life they could have been, maybe.  But they weren’t now, they didn’t trust him and he couldn’t really trust them.  From the level of activity around the car and van parked in his drive they were getting ready to leave anyway.  Out of his life, back to their own happy hectic ones, away from _him_ anyway.

Mikael stroked a gentle fingertip over the worn fuzz on top of Felix’s head.  Why couldn’t they have just gone on their way when he’d slipped away yesterday, he just couldn’t understand it.  What did they want?  He smiled faintly, Linke could just want sex, he’d sure been interested in the office.

Mikael’s smile died, and he stroked a hand down Felix’s back and over one bent wing.  Linke could have any partner he wanted, their encounter was a once off, bet, dare, punishment.  Once they left that would be it.

“Hey,” Mikael turned back toward the door to see a flushed Franky leaning in with a smile.  “We got a call and need to get to a photo shoot.” Mikael had wondered what they would come up with, but managed a polite if weak smile for Franky.  He was still angry, but after yelling at Linke and almost hitting him that had settled to a low level hurt.  In their place he probably would have done the same thing, to try and protect a friend.  He was just so _tired_ of being reasonable and rational and adult, he wanted to scream and rant and rage like a child.

Franky took his smile at face value though and after a bit of awkward talk and a vague promise to come see him again that Mikael didn’t believe at all took his leave.

Mikael let the smile fade and leaned his head against the cold glass of the window, looking down at the driveway and watching as the rest piled into the van with Franky trotting out last and piling in.  Linke just stood by his car looking up, scanning the side of the building for something as the van pulled out.  Mikael spread one hand flat against the glass and just watched as Linke stared up then abruptly turned and climbed into his car and drove away.

Mikael curled around his stuffed dragon and tried not to break down and cry again.  He wasn’t a little boy; he was a gown man and didn’t need anyone.  He didn’t need help, he didn’t need Linke.  He was fine on his own.

All he had to do was get through tomorrows fight with Gottschalk and his penny pinching board flunkies and he would go back to life as usual.  He had Mauser for company. He didn’t need anyone else.

Mikael ruthlessly ignored the little boy inside who wanted someone else to cling to and tell him it would all be okay.

~0~

Linke hated photo shoots, but had long ago accepted the necessity.  After spending an afternoon shooting followed by another full day of shooting and almost five hours of signing only to collapse in his hotel bed for a few paltry hours of sleep to start standing around getting blinded by a flash again for the third day running, he was more than ready for a break.  He was also wondering where the hell he’d left his jacket; he’d had it a couple days ago he was sure.

If the photographer would just get on with the individual shoots he’d have enough time to think back and backtrack where he could have left it.  Linke grumbled to himself when the photographer chose then to shift to individual shots and the bastard decided to pick _him_ to go first.  Normally Linke wouldn’t have minded, but Phillip was queer as a three euro note and was always trying to get him to agree to a set of shots without a shirt.  Linke had always refused, in part because after Franky had agreed he’d tried to get the singer to agree to a set of him in just his boxers!  Linke felt his nipple piercing were nobody’s damn business but his own, and besides no one wanted to look at his skinny chicken legs anyway.

Phillip still tried and when Linke growled at him he just went into flamboyant raptures, taking numerous shots with injunctions to ‘pout’ and ‘scowl’ which only made the guys laugh harder.  After several quick changes and the wardrobe girl being a cheeky little bint and putting a set of leather trousers in place of his usual cargoes for the last set he was finally able to sit down. 

He grumbled a bit when the girl refused to let him change back into his cargoes or at least a pair of jeans, claiming Phillip had one more set of group shots he wanted to do and the leather was part of it.  The leather was soft, but it still bound up a bit when he sat down and forced him to a bit of quick adjusting before things got to uncomfortable.  Only Franky had the legs to carry of snug leather trousers very well, or Juri, the rest of them were just too damn thin.  The sight of the heavy zipper laden black leather jacket that was the rest of his final outfit brought Linke back to the problem.

Carefully he mentally retraced his steps.  Linke hadn’t been able to find his jacket in the hotel room today, and he hadn’t had it at the signing last night, before that had been the Mediaplex shoot and he hadn’t had it there.  It wasn’t at Timo’s because he hadn’t been to Timo’s since the last time he knew for sure he’d had the jacket.  He’d had it for sure Wednesday, at Mikael’s.  Linke felt his inside do a funny little twist, he really wanted to see the guitarist again but wasn’t sure if Mikael wanted anything to do with him.

He reached for his phone and had it flipped open to the phone book before he realized, he never had gotten Mikael’s phone number.  Linke looked over to where Juri, Jan and Franky were.  Phillip was delightedly doing some shots of Timo and David and the pair were doing some of the cute ‘best friend forever’ silliness.

“Hey,” Linke called over getting Jan and Franky’s attention immediately. “You guys get Mikael’s phone number?  I think I left my jacket at his place.” Juri immediately shook his head as Jan and Franky both opened their phones to check.

“Nope, sorry man.” Jan snapped his phone shut and shook his head in the negative also. Franky eventually looked up as well.

“I thought I had, but I’m not finding it if I did.  Sorry Chris.  Maybe after we’re done you can go over and ask?”  Linke grimaced, he had no idea if Mikael would even be home, other than the square and the club he had no earthly idea of where to look to find him if he wasn’t at the house.

Linke just sighed and nodded his thanks to the guys before he fell back into his brooding.  Lost in thought he didn’t see Timo and David finish and Jan step up for his turn.  Juri must have asked if either of them had Mikael’s number because he was startled out of his thoughts by Timo’s rude snort.

“If I’d asked I’d expect to get a wrong number.  We didn’t exactly hit it off if you remember.” David just rolled his eyes and swatted Timo’s shoulder.

“You were only being an asshole.”

“I was not!” David and Juri both gave Timo a long look at that.  “What?” he protested. “I was being judgmental, that’s not being an asshole.”

Linke snorted.  “If you say so Timo.” He smirked when Timo started protesting, the playful bickering distracted him fairly well for a while, at least until he saw Jan looking far too cute in a biker jacket and leather chaps. 

The strangled squeak out of Juri was priceless.  But Linke found himself wondering what Mikael would look like dressed like that and had to give his libido a hard slap and yank his mind back to the task at hand.

The day just could not end soon enough for him.

~0~

It was still early enough that Linke thought he’d have a chance at finding Mikael at his spot in the square so he drove that direction.  He’d gotten himself a tall travel cup of his favorite tea and turned back to prowl the area when he realized the music he was hearing was from a boom box between a pair of teenage boys.  Linke sipped his tea and scanned the square.  When the waitress came by he stopped her and asked if she’d seen the musician today.

She’d shrugged and said he hadn’t been by in a few days, but that sometimes he didn’t.  Linke thanked her and frowned into his cup as he walked back to his car.  This time he had no trouble navigating back to the large old house, but when he pulled into the drive he was disturbed to see a police car and a pair of uniformed officers speaking to a distraught older woman.

When he pulled in one of the officers immediately came over to shoo him away.  At least that was what he thought.

“Sir, do you live here?”

Linke blinked, “No sir, my friend Mikael lives here.”  Linke wondered what on earth had happened and if maybe he should have just written off his jacket as lost.

“Step out of the car please sir, we just have a few questions we need to ask you.”

Linke obeyed with a sick feeling of foreboding in the pit of his stomach.  The officer quietly pulled him to one side and introduced himself as _Schupo_ Otto Lehrer.  He explained that the woman had called them early this morning to report that Mikael had apparently been dragged out of his house and they were trying to see if it was just Frau Bear doing her weekly worry fit over her young neighbor or if it was something that really needed looking into.

Linke felt rather weird, but answered the officer’s questions as best he could.  No, he didn’t know if anyone would want to hurt Mikael, but he hadn’t known him very long at all. Yes, he’d seen him recently, Wednesday afternoon and he’d been fine when Linke had left.  He was back looking for his misplaced jacket, but hadn’t called because he’s forgotten to get Mikael’s number.  Yes, he’d be willing to walk through but he wasn’t sure if he’d see anything out of place.  No, he hadn’t heard from or seen Mikael since Wednesday, but he’d been busy. He felt very weird accounting for his whereabouts for the last three days but he had a **lot** of witnesses if it came down to it.

Walking through the house felt creepy, the officer started him at the top floor and other than the office which was completely clear of papers he couldn’t have said if anything had been disturbed.  Linke felt obscurely grateful for his memory of things he’d read even if it wasn’t as good as Jan’s because when he mentioned the missing papers the officer had asked what they were he’d been able to answer that they had to do with the hospital bill Mikael was paying down and to which hospital it was.  Beyond that though he’d had to answer that he didn’t know to a lot of things, he knew Mikael had been sick but not anything else as he hadn’t known him then.  They’d met because of a rather tasteless dare he admitted but had become friends because of music, hedging a bit of how they’d met to make Mikael not look like a desperate man and possible unregistered prostitute and to make himself look like less of an ass.

The first floor was just as he remembered, closed up with all the furniture covered in dust sheets.  The ground floor he found Mikael’s jacket draped over a chair and the bedding they had used folded neatly and stacked near the cupboard it had come out of.  The worn blankets and pillows on the couch lay like someone had been sleeping there.  Mauser was curled up in the middle asleep but nothing else looked out of place.

Linke didn’t see his jacket, only Mikael’s and found that to be odd, but didn’t say anything.  He just sat down on the couch beside Mauser and stroked the cat’s hard head as the officers prowled the room and continued questioning.

Linke didn’t like that he didn’t know the answers, he knew Mikael had had a call that upset him right before they left Wednesday, but other than that he really didn’t know anything.  He had a handful of first names of other people Mikael knew but no phone numbers and other than the club, no addresses or places of work.

Linke didn’t know what he was thinking when he offered to take Mauser after one officer had mentioned calling animal control, but he couldn’t let the poor cat get locked up in the pound.  Eventually they said he could go, on a wild impulse he shrugged on Mikael’s jacket and reached to scoop Mauser up.  The cat let out a grumbly grunt, but let Linke wrap him up in one of the old blankets and carry him out to the car.

His mother was going to kill him Linke thought, bringing home another animal, but looking at the frightened animal huddled in his passenger seat and listening to the plaintive miaows he knew he couldn’t have done anything else.  As Linke drove he had a thought maybe André would help him out. He took the next turn and backtracked.

Luck was with him for a change as he pulled up to the curb in front of his sister’s small house, her car was there and she was just heading up to her door with an armload of groceries.  She looked over at him in surprise and come concern.

“Christian, what’s wrong?”  Linke twitched his shoulders guiltily; sometimes he really hated how easily his sister could read him.

“I, um, kind of have a favor to ask.” He suddenly felt about five when André gave him _that_ look; that Mauser chose that moment to let out a particularly pathetic wail didn’t help.

“Christian,” André started then sighed when Linke gave her his best begging face. “Fine, bring the poor thing inside.”  She turned back to unlock her door and Linke heaved a huge sigh of relief as he turned back to the car to gather a very unhappy Mauser up into his arms.

André was busily putting away her shopping when Linke got the cat inside.  She paused just long enough to put a kettle of water on to heat and to give Linke a long measuring look that had him scuffing a toe into the linoleum floor of her kitchen.

“That’s not David’s cat.”  Linke winced; Mauser was about as far from Sofi as it was possible for a black and white cat to be.

“No,” he agreed. “His name is Mauser. Um, he um belongs to a friend.”  Linke fidgeted under his sister’s stare.

“A friend,” she asked, her tone made Linke wince.

“Um, yeah.”

“A friend you swap jackets with,” André observed and Linke winced again, he forgot that André was more observant on some things than their mother was.

“Erm, well not exactly.”

“Chris that isn’t your jacket unless you’re doing a delayed phase of dressing in second hand store rejects.”  She pursed her lips in thought.  “What’s his name?”

“Mikael.”  God he felt like he was sixteen and getting grilled about a date.  Linke didn’t even try and ponder how André knew his friend was male.

“Mikael,” André repeated as she offered a finger to Mauser to see if the cat would tolerate her touch.  “Mikael who Christian?”

Linke gulped and answered meekly, “Sommer.” He didn’t expect André to stand up as sharply as she did or the laser edged stare she leveled on him.

“As in the Mikael Sommer who is heir to the estate of Alexandra Sommer the singer?”

“Uh, I guess.” Linke suddenly felt like he should have taken the time to see what David, Juri and Jan had found on the Internet.  André just gave him an exasperated sigh and shoved him toward a chair.

“**_Christian_**, sit.  You’re going to explain everything about this friend.  Or is he a **_friend_** friend?”  Linke meekly sat down as André started two large mugs of tea steeping, he flinched at her emphasis.  But André knew he was bi, she’d caught him making out with another boy when he’d been fifteen and just figuring out that he liked boys as well as girls.

“Um,” Linke just stared at the worn table top and tried to figure out how to answer in a way that wouldn’t get him fussed at.  The sigh out of his sister when she set a mug in front of him didn’t bode well on that count. The folded paper that she dropped beside it was a complete surprise.

“Is that your Mikael?”  Linke scanned the headline; some high power banker had been caught with a severely underage girl in a very compromising situation.  That in and of itself wasn’t all that unusual, just this banker managed the trust councils of several multi million euro estates.  A double row of pictures showed the faces of ten or so minors and young adults.  André’s finger pointed to the third one in the second row.

He wasn’t as thin and had a painfully sweet smile in the grainy black and white print, but it was Mikael.  Linke swore and was scrambling to find the rest of the article.

~0~

André just sat back with her mug and watched.  She had her answer, and shook her head silently as she waited.  When Chris looked up at her with worried and confused eyes she started filling him in on what little she knew.  She’d only been tracking because she’d been toying with a short story about a girl in a similar situation and thought following the story would help with realism.

“Apparently there are some irregularities in several of the accounts he manages and the authorities are looking for the people he holds those accounts in trust for.”  She paused and took a sip of her tea and offered the gradually relaxing cat a finger to sniff again.  Clearly Chris’s Mikael was just as much a softy as her brother was to take in a beaten up old tomcat like this one.

“No one has _officially_ been declared missing yet, but things look very odd.  Several of the children aren’t in the schools they are recorded as being enrolled in. But that may just be they haven’t found the correct records, or that the schools aren’t being forthcoming as to who they have on their rolls.”  Chris wasn’t acting like he would if it was just a friend who might be in some trouble.  She’d always held the opinion if Chris fell in love it would completely blindside him, but Chris had always scoffed at that and at what he called the ‘love at first sight nonsense’ that she sometimes used in her writings.

Gradually she was able to pry more information out of her little brother, she discarded the love theory as Chris hadn’t even known the young man in question for a week.  Obsession though, that was still viable.  Chris was reacting a bit too strongly to all this for this Mikael to be just a new friend.  Impulsively taking in an animal for someone he barely knew just wasn’t something he’d normally do. 

Taking in a stray though, she grimaced; oh he’d tried that numerous times.  And it wasn’t the terribly cute kittens she’d tried to bring home or the wriggly month old puppy that wound up going back to his mother that Sebastian had tried, it was always beaten and battered animals on their last legs from the crabby old orange tabby cat that had just lost a fight to the abandoned hound dog that had been so worn out and old he hadn’t lasted the night.  She remembered how she’d held a seven year old Christian and they’d both cried after finding the poor old thing dead in the box their mother had lined in an old blanket for them to use as a temporary bed until the animal control people could come Monday.

Watching the cat Chris had brought she mused on the appropriateness of the name.  André had been having a bit of trouble this fall with spiders moving into her kitchen and in an attempt to settle himself the cat had taken to stalking the half dozen or so she had chasing around her baseboards that she hadn’t dealt with yet.  One slap of a meaty paw and she only had spider bits to sweep up.  Mauser would huff and wash the bits off his paw and grumble to himself.  They weren’t very big spiders so he wasn’t eating them exactly, but he was killing them very dead very efficiently.  And dead little spiders didn’t grow into the big ones that gave her fits.

André pulled her attention back to her brother.  Chris wasn’t calm, but he wasn’t worrying himself stupid, at least not yet.  So she let him go with only a few misgivings and after she’d waved him away she turned and went looking for the litter pan and sand she’d used the last time David’s cat had needed mindered for a week.

She did hope this old boy was house broken.  Only after she got things settled for Mauser’s stay did André realize she hadn’t asked when Chris had gotten a set of leather trousers.

~0~

It had taken sixteen days, but Mikael had finally admitted he was scared shitless and really, **_really_** wanted to go home.  It wasn’t that the police weren’t being as sympathetic as they could be, or that the bank officials were being purposefully obstructive; it was that they were waiting on a DNA test to come back and prove he was really who he said he was.  He hadn’t even been allowed to go home and let poor Mauser out and to collect a few changes of clothing.  Someone else, another stranger he mourned, had been in his house to do that.

_Schupo_ Lehrer had told him that his cat was being looked after, but initially that hadn’t reassured him at all and he’d thrown a bit of a temper tantrum and fallen into a full blown panic attack that had taken a trip to the emergency room to calm.  After that the officer told him that Linke had come looking for him and agreed to take Mauser.

The officer hadn’t even batted an eye when Mikael had exclaimed in near hysteria that Linke wasn’t his friend, he _couldn’t_ be and that they’d known each other all of two days.  Lehrer’s partner had just shushed him and fed him another pill and the world had faded into a blurry haze for the rest of the day.

It wasn’t like he was being treated badly; they brought him food which was a damn sight better than what he normally ate when at home.  He even had a hotpot and a box of tea in the room.  They had brought him clothing; jeans and plain sweatshirts and t-shirts, all of them new if inexpensive examples of their type.  He even had access to a television, something he hadn’t been able to watch in years outside the very basic informational channels.

And whoever had been into his house had brought him Felix, the worn old toy sat on the pillow of room’s bed.  After the first few days they had let him use the hotel’s exercise room and pool if there was an officer with him.  He couldn’t remember the last time he had swum, in Realschule was the last time he could think of where he would have had access and permission.

A week ago they’d even brought him a guitar after he’d broken when they’d asked if he needed or wanted anything and begged for his and some paper and pencils.  It wasn’t _his_ guitar, but it was a pretty enough instrument with a sweet voice and would serve to help keep him from going unquietly mad.  He had some things better than he had before, far better food, and new, warm clothing, but he wasn’t home and he wasn’t allowed to leave.  Sure, he was starting to put on some desperately needed weight and daily workouts were layering bits of muscle down, but he wasn’t allowed to walk around outside.

Any day now they said the results would be back.  But they wouldn’t say what would happen then.

He’d given up on trying not to cry himself to sleep at night.  After four days he’d quit begging to be allowed to go home.  After seven he’d quit asking if Mauser was okay.  He just prayed the old cat had managed to find something to eat shut up in the house, or to escape out the door. At least there was more in the house after, he stopped and swallowed hard, after Linke and his friends had come.  He didn’t really believe that Linke had taken Mauser in.

Mikael curled up in a tighter ball on his perch in the window and leaned his cheek against the chill glass.  It was raining out and the few people he could see on the street were all huddled in their coats and under their umbrellas hurrying toward their destinations.  He huddled a little tighter in the jacket around his shoulders.

Somehow Linke had left his, and when the bank officials and the security people with them had all but beaten down his door and dragged him out he’d grabbed it instead of his own.  Mikael breathed the faintly musky scent of the other man in and took a small bit of comfort in it as he watched the few people he could see from his window dwindle down to an empty street as the sun set and the rain came down harder.

It was supposed to freeze tonight, Mikael felt like he was already frozen. Eventually he crawled down from the windowsill and over to the bed and climbed in to curl around poor Felix and cry himself to sleep again.

He didn’t want to be alone anymore.  He wanted to go home, to feel Mauser’s claws as he kneaded Mikael’s stomach before curling up.  Even to work until three am with Sepp and Markus and laugh with Lucas and Nikki over some silly dance fad.  This wasn’t protective custody, this was hell.

He just wanted to go home.

~0~

“Alright people, moving on, what about the Sommer boy?”  _Land_ Egger asked looking around the table at the officers assembled there. _Kripo_ Faust spoke up immediately, as she had for all the sub-cases for this investigation.  But she was the one coordinating with the labs for all the DNA testing.

“He’s who he claims he is, the records match, and his fingerprints match the Realschule record we have found for him.  We’ve also been able to find one of his Gymnasium teachers who was able to positively identify a current photograph as being the boy she remembered.”  Egger nodded and turned his attention to _Kripo_ Klein who had gone to do the interviews.

“Apparently he was a fairly average student, excelling in maths, music and languages.  He was quiet from what Frau Kirsch remembers of him, she only really remembered him because he was never allowed to go on school sponsored trips that required guardian permissions and he spent the time in her office.” Klein consulted his notes. “He did Alternative Service right after graduation, again fairly routine, just a note he played piano for the elders at the home he was assigned and was generally well liked.”  Klein flipped a page. “One of the residents remembered him quite fondly, said the boy had a temper but generally was respectful of his elders.”

“A temper,” Egger prodded, as he peered over his glasses intently at his man. Klein’s partner Jaeger spoke up.

“Didn’t like bullies sir.  Apparently got himself soundly beaten up several times as a boy trying to step into things that weren’t strictly his business, or when someone was beating an animal.  The few schoolmates I’ve found that remembered him recalled him being a bit of a loner, only a few close friends that we’re still tracking down.  We should be hearing back from the one stationed in Afghanistan within the next few days.” He consulted his notebook as well. “There was a note from the _Schupo_ that his neighbor was hysterical about him being taken and while they were calming her down another young man came by.  The boy’s cat was taken by a Christian Linke, apparently a fairly recent acquaintance if the notes I have are anything to go by.  But he left us his information and pointed at a few people who work at one of the local clubs. _Schupo_ was trying to get full names and contact information last I checked.” Jaeger shrugged.

“What have _Schupo_ Lehrer and the others watching him said?”

“That’s not so good,” Lida Weiss, their psychologist answered her face rather sad.  “Most of the others have managed fairly well with being monitored.  He isn’t, he’ll speak when spoken to but is withdrawing a little more each day.  Faust, Lehrer and Gerber have tried getting him to talk but other than going to the hotels exercise room and pool they aren’t seeing a lot of activity out of him.  He either plays the guitar Gerber found for him or sits and stares out the window.” She flipped a page of her notes and continued.  “He doesn’t ask for anything special at meals,” several of the other officers winced at that, some of the other children in protective custody had made a game of demanding strange things at mealtimes then refusing to eat them.  “He is eating at least, but only whatever comes up in the rotation.” Weiss folded her hands over her notes and gave Egger a level look that spoke of deep concern.

“I don’t like his passivity, it’s unhealthy.  The rages and demands to go home we got his first few days with us were far more normal.  With Edda able to give us a positive confirmation of his identity I think it would be in his best interests to let the poor boy go home.”

Egger grimaced, it was so much easier to watch their dozen cases all together, and separate out the ones who weren’t who they claimed to be.  But Lida didn’t make recommendations lightly.

“It will be taken into consideration,” Egger started when Lida spoke up again.

“At least let the poor boy out of the hotel to speak to his friends, no doubt the few he has in the city are concerned.  Not being so isolated may help with his mental state.”

 “Lida, I will consider your recommendations carefully,” Egger promised.  “What about our last unidentified, Miss Braen?” He had other cases to balance to ensure that Gottschalk and his coterie of cronies got every bit of their just punishment.

~0~

Linke flopped backward onto the hotel bed with a low groan. The last twenty-two days had been pure madness. Recording, doing interviews, photo shoots and publicity works and playing small shows for their fan clubs, some of which turned out to be rather large.  When you expected three hundred fans and got three _thousand_ instead it could be a bit disconcerting.  Barcelona and Madrid had been fun though, and it was rather flattering that so many people turned out in the cold and the wet to see them, even if Spain was a damn sight warmer than Berlin was right now.

André had kept him updated on the Gottschalk Six scandal, and let him know that Mauser had effectively de-spidered his sister’s home and was now moving on to any unfortunate mouse or bird that found its way into the attic or basement. She’d also gotten the phone number for Markus and Nikki at the club and after a long internal debate Linke had called them to see if they knew anything about what had happened to Mikael.

Initially they hadn’t heard anything, but three days ago they had finally gotten a call and passed on that Mikael was still in protective custody until the trial was finished but that now he was allowed to call people.

Linke had shuddered a bit when he’d heard that.  Not being able to talk to his friends would drive him insane in fairly short order. Nikki said that while Mikael didn’t sound happy about his confinement that Mikael had said it was improving.

And that had bothered him even if he couldn’t put a finger on why.  Tired but frustrated and fidgety Linke rose and went downstairs to the hotel bar, maybe a beer or two would help him relax and sleep.  He was going to see his sister tomorrow then catch up to the rest of the guys who were going straight back to the band house after the morning interview.

The halls and elevator were empty and only one clerk was on duty in the lobby when Linke stepped off.  He hesitated for a long moment in the area between the bar and the hallway leading off to the lounge and dining areas.

The bar was fairly quiet, but the faint tinkling of piano keys lured him toward the lounge.  Maybe just sitting with David would help him relax enough to sleep Linke mused as he padded toward the smaller lounge.

At first he didn’t register that the dark head bent over the piano keys wasn’t the right shade, it wasn’t until Linke was at the players shoulder that he noticed the blaze of white and froze in shock.  That wasn’t David.  He reached out with a faintly trembling hand.

“Mikael?”

Mikael sighed softly and pulled the cover over the keyboard and turned in resignation.

“I’m going _Schu_... **_Christian_**?”  Mikael’s flinch made Linke grab for him before he fell, but they still wound up in an untidy heap beside the piano bench.  Linke scrambled to his knees and wound his arms around Mikael’s shaking body, shushing him and hoping that he hadn’t just set off another panic attack.  Mikael reached up a trembling hand to touch Linke’s face, that small touch made Linke freeze and stare down into Mikael’s widely dilated green eyes.

“Christian,” Mikael asked in a small frightened voice that left Linke wondering just what had happened in the last three weeks that had turned the private man he’d met into a shuddering wreck.

“Yeah, it’s me,” he answered because Mikael seemed to need the confirmation.

“Are,” Mikael swallowed hard, “are you real?”

Linke felt his chest knot up, but he hugged Mikael anyway, all but pulling the smaller man into his lap.  “Yeah, I’m real.” Linke managed a small smile before Mikael let out a little hiccup sound and wrapped himself tightly around the taller mans frame.  For a moment it felt like Mikael was trying to crawl inside Linke’s shirt with him, but then he just hung on and shook.  Linke just buried his nose in Mikael’s hair and held on.

Mikael’s hair smelled like raspberries.

It was an utterly irrelevant observation, but one Linke couldn’t help but make.  The soft musky smell under that was the same one he remembered from before though and Linke was stomping hard on the reaction that smell provoked.  All he’d had time for was a few quick sessions in the showers when they had hotel rooms.  There was a moratorium on jacking off on the bus and none of them had had the time much less the inclination to take a fan or random pick up back to their hotel rooms and ease tensions that way.  Timo and David slept in the same room from long habit, so they could sneak cuddles if they wanted.  Jan and Juri Linke knew had done more than cuddle, but his room had shared a wall with theirs.  The sounds Jan had made had provoked some interesting dreams that had left Linke short sleep and very, _very_ frustrated.

Now he had the time and had what he’d been wanting curled up in his arms and he couldn’t even take advantage of it.  Linke sighed and rubbed his cheek over the top of Mikael’s head.  Sometimes being ethical sucked rocks, he mused as he started rubbing small circles on Mikael’s shoulder and tried to ignore how the way Mikael was breathing into his neck made his cock throb.

Eventually Mikael’s shudders slowed and stopped, but Linke didn’t let Mikael go.  Partly because he wanted to feel the smaller guitarists warmth a little longer, and partly because if he let go he’d have to stand up and his right leg was completely numb from being sat on.

Mikael let him go with a little lurch and scrubbed at his eyes with the heel of one hand.

“Sorry,” his voice was soft and a little husky, so Linke had to stomp on his libido hard to keep from doing something idiotic.  Mikael wouldn’t look up at him and Linke suspected the other man was mortified at his breakdown, but when he shifted like he was going to move away Linke tightened his arms a little.  That little action made Mikael look up at him.

“You okay?”  Linke didn’t think he was yet, but he didn’t want to try moving just yet either.  He tried to ignore the pins and needles feeling in his toes as he flexed his foot a little to get the blood flowing again.

“I,” Mikael paused a little then continued, “I think so.  I feel better than I did.”

“Other than a stuffed up nose and headache,” teased Linke mildly.  The flush and smile he got in answer made numb toes worth it.

“Um, yeah. Um. I, uh, you left your jacket.” Mikael said rather awkwardly as he rested his cheek back on Linke’s shoulder.

“Yeah, I know.  I went back for it but you were already gone. I made sure to take Mauser though.” That got a reaction as Mikael turned a bit to stare into Linke’s eyes; almost as if he wasn’t sure he believed Linke but badly wanted to.

“Mauser’s okay?”  Linke grinned and nodded, shifting around so he wasn’t sitting on his foot anymore.

“Yeah, my sister loves him, he’s been a one cat extermination force for the vermin who try and move in at this time of year.”

“Your, sister?” Mikael asked in confusion as Linke started nudging him toward one of the huge upholstered chairs.

“My sister,” Linke agreed. “André took him because I was going on the road with the guys, and she lives just outside Berlin.  I figured at some point we’d find out what happened to you.”  Mikael shifted up into the chair and curled into a loose ball, his chin on his knees and arms loosely linked around his ankles.  Linke grimaced as he stretched out his numb leg and settled beside the other man, vaguely wishing the chairs were just a little smaller so he could have the excuse to cuddle that little bit closer.

“I worried, and none of the officers who I saw could tell me what had happened to him.”  Mikael looked up from his shoes and Linke felt his gut flip over at the sadness in those green eyes.  “I was scared he’d gotten shut up inside.”

Linke shuddered at that, by now Mauser likely would have been dead as little as there was to eat in that house. He hastened to reassure Mikael.

“It didn’t come to that.  André adores him and spoils him rotten.  She even lets him sleep with her.”  Linke smiled at the very thought that seven kilos of cat couldn’t sleep wherever the hell he damn well pleased.  David’s Sofi wasn’t even three kilos and she slept wherever she pleased, which if Timo wasn’t there meant on David’s pillow right by David’s head.  If Timo was there she’d sleep on Timo, whether he liked it or not.

Mikael smiled weakly, Linke wound an arm around Mikael and hugged him gently.

_Schupo_ Otto Lehrer just leaned against the door frame and quietly watched as in a few short minutes their most worrisome change was soothed by Linke.  Once they both headed upstairs he’d keep watch over the Sommer boy’s door again.  Strictly speaking he should have shooed the other man away from his charge, but the change in his morale was worth the slight risk.

Lehrer agreed with his brother in _Kripo_, this young man needed to get out of the hotel a little.  And young Herr Linke was the next best thing.  Lehrer didn’t think the young man would say anything to the media that wasn’t related to music and his band.

Especially not anything like this, he mused as he watches the Sommer boy cuddle into Linke’s chest.  No, Lehrer mused to himself as he kept a close watch on the doors, Linke wouldn’t want anyone to know he leaned toward boys, it could be devastating to his career and the careers of his friends.

He’d just make sure no one came in and keep watch on the outside of the doors.

~0~

Linke focused on keeping his rhythm as close to perfect as it was possible to be, when David waved his hand at him to stop Linke sighed and dropped his hands to the couch.  They’d been over this section several times already and his hands were starting to ache a little from the focused repeats.  Linke sighed again in relief when David looked into the booth, grinned tiredly and made a come out wave.

When he cleared the door he saw that Jan and Franky had both lost the fight against sleep and were zonked out on the couch.  Juri looked up at him from where he was being used as a pillow by Jan and blinked sleepily before giving him a little wry grin.  Timo was spinning in his chair while Conrad and Paul were focusing on something on David’s laptop screen.

“I think that got it,” David stretched and scrubbed his hands through the hair at the nape of his neck. He let out a low groan when Timo rolled his chair over and started kneading at the tight muscles of David’s neck and shoulder.

“I say we call it for the night.” Timo’s voice was blurred and a bit husky with fatigue.  Conrad and Paul exchanged a glance and nodded their agreement.  They’d been working for over fourteen hours and it was well past time to stop, but on the plus side they’d gotten two songs finished today other than the final mixing.  If they had another couple sessions like this they’d have the baseline recording for the new album done within a week.  Not that David would be done mixing, tweaking and asking for little bits of redo recording anything like that fast, in fact if David was remotely satisfied with the sound before the end of next month Linke would be very surprised.

“Here, here,” agreed Juri as he carefully sat up, Jan had sprawled over his lap and Juri had to take care so he wouldn’t accidentally dump the sleeping DJ on the floor.  Linke idly watched as the drummer squirmed his way upright then wrapped his long arms around Jan’s limp body and just stood.  Displays of strength like that always made him feel faintly envious, but who Linke envied was never quite clear even in his own head.  Jan didn’t even twitch as Juri shrugged him into a better carrying position and headed down the hallway that connected the studio to the rest of the band house.

Timo was focused completely on David’s shoulders and Paul and Conrad were saving everything and carefully shutting down the recording systems so Linke reluctantly set about the chore of just waking Franky just enough that he could help walk himself to bed without waking the singer so completely that he wouldn’t be able to get back to sleep.  It was a delicate balance, but Linke was the best person for the job after David, and David was busy being turned to goo by Timo’s talented hands.

With a little work Linke got Franky upright and walking, well staggering was a better word for it, in the right direction.  The stairs were challenging as always but with a bit of patience Linke was able to herd Franky into his room.  A bit of coaxing and Linke was able to get the singer out of his shirt and was just getting Franky’s belt undone when he heard the long low moan that told him that Jan had managed one of his sleeping sex tricks. 

Juri had been mortified when Jan had gotten the drummers pants down and sucked him off while completely asleep when the band had been sleepily talking in the den about a year ago.  None of them knew how he did it, or why Juri was Jan’s favorite target cum victim but when they got overtired from recording or touring Jan started sleepwalking.  About a third of the time Jan’s sleepwalking would turn into sleep sucking of someone’s cock. Linke hadn’t believed it was possible until it had happened to him and he’d been unable to wake Jan up until after the little DJ had made him come. 

Linke figured there was a reason Juri had started sharing hotel rooms with Jan, and why he’d undertaken the task of getting a dead asleep DJ back to bed, but until the pair was willing to admit what they had was far more than friends with benefits Linke wasn’t going to say anything.

Not that he wouldn’t tease the crap out of Jan for having another sleep sucking incident though, Juri was a lucky bastard.

Linke sighed as Franky’s jeans slid down and hefted the singer over to his bed and let him flop into the bedding. After pulling Franky’s shoes and jeans the rest of the way off Linke cheated and tickled the bottom of one of Franky’s feet.  With a little squeak of protest Franky squirmed away and got himself the rest of the way on the bed without Linke having to awkwardly heft him over. After that Linke covered the singer with his duvet and wandered out closing the door firmly behind him.

The little whimpers from Jan’s room told Linke that Juri wasn’t going to be going anywhere any time soon.  When fully awake Jan was impatient during sex, asleep all the patience and meticulousness of the chemistry geek came out and into play.  Juri would be begging for a good hour or so if past experience was anything to go by.  Linke just sighed again and made sure the door was closed on his way past.  The glance inside showed Juri flat on his back, his hands tangled in Jan’s blond hair, whimpering as Jan slowly nuzzled and sucked.

Lucky bastard, Linke thought as he pulled the door securely closed and continued down the hall to his own room.

He toed his shoes off and left them by the door, his shirts came off next as he walked toward his rumpled bed and got dropped carelessly on the floor.  The belt was undone and the cargo’s slid down to be left in a heap by the bed as Linke crawled in.  He hadn’t bothered to turn on a light; the faint illumination from his computers running lights was more than enough for him to navigate the familiar space.

Linke rolled onto his back with a low groan. He wished he could call Mikael, but it was past four am and the other man was probably dead asleep, and Linke was damned if he was going to disrupt the other man’s rest. 

The past couple weeks had been rather odd, Linke had been able to get the number to Mikael’s room and had made sure Mikael had his cell number so they’d been able to talk several times after their chance meeting in the hotel’s lounge.

Linke groaned as his cock twitched.  When they’d run into each other Mikael had all but fallen apart and Linke had resolutely refused to take advantage of that.  They’d talked; Linke has swapped sweatshirts after the other man had sheepishly confessed to sleeping with Linke’s jacket because the way it smelled helped him to sleep.  He reached under his pillow for the plain sweatshirt he’d gotten in exchange, the musky scent making his cock twitch again.

They hadn’t done more than kiss that night, but Linke’s mind was already tracing through an alternate ending to the evening, one where he hadn’t waited at the elevators for Mikael to bring him his jacket back, where the night hadn’t just ended with a single sweet kiss. 

With a little growl Linke stripped off his boxers and kicked them off the bed.  His mind’s eye filling with images as his hands trailed down his body.  Linke knew he’d lick and bite at Mikael’s nipples and fantasized about how Mikael would arch into his touch as he thumbed his nipple rings, then tugged them, would Mikael toy with them like that Linke wondered as he gave the left one a hard twist before moving his hand down.

They’d pet for a while Linke decided, he remembered how exquisitely sensitive Mikael had been in the club, how he squirmed when Linke had feasted on his neck.  Linke groaned as his cock jerked in his hand at the memory of how Mikael hadn’t worn underwear and how he’d been hard and leaking when Linke’s hand had finally freed him from his jeans.

Linke groaned again when his mind offered up a vision of Mikael on his back, legs spread so Linke could feast on all that soft pale skin.  He remembered how Mikael’s hand had fisted tight in the hair at the nape of his neck and wondered how would to feel to have that hand pulling his hair for another reason.  Would Mikael moan and beg and frantically fist Linke’s hair as Linke blew him or would he pant and whimper trying desperately to stay quiet.  Would he demand to taste himself on Linke’s tongue after Linke had sucked him dry or would he lick and bite his way down Linke’s chest before going after Linke’s cock like a starving man after bread?

Linke groaned at the thought of the barest touch of those white teeth grazing over his cock as those lips spread to take him all the way in.  His hand was moving faster now and he was thrusting up hard.  Would Mikael ride him Linke wondered, or would he spread his legs and push that tight little ass back into his belly or roll to elbows and knees and beg to take it like a dog?

His breathing was ragged as his right hand abandoned his aching tit and reached down to tug at his own sack, to soon, he’d wanted this to last and he was already about to come.  Then Linke remembered how Mikael’s hand had reached around him and that questing finger had groped down and between his buttocks just before he came.

Would Mikael be a shy hesitant lover or would he pin Linke to the bed and push Linke’s thighs apart to plunder his ass.  The idea of being tied and helpless as Mikael slowly fucked him senseless made him gasp and writhe under his own hands.  The idea wouldn’t let him go, so whimpering with need Linke groped for the supplies in his drawer.  Linke was so strung out he just slicked up the smallest of his toys and pushed it right in with no other preparation and moaned wantonly.  It burned a little going in but it felt so good as he thumbed the switch to on and groped for his leaking cock again.

The memory of those soft green eyes closing as Mikael came was his undoing and Linke let out a desperate choked cry as he came hard all over his belly.  The hum of the toy in his ass kept the aftershocks bouncing around his body until he couldn’t take it anymore and pulled the thing out and switched it off.

Then Linke just laid there panting as the sweat cooled.  It had been far too long since he’d gotten fucked if just a fantasy got him this worked up.  With a low groan Linke reached for the tissues to clean up, wiped himself off and collapsed back into bed too tired to care about anything else as sleep crept up and tackled him into sweet hot dreams of a willing and playful Mikael.

Outside Linke’s door Timo focused on slowing his breathing for several long moments before he quick stepped back to David’s room,  He could ask about that guitar re-write in the morning, after he’d fucked David’s lights out.

~0~

Mikael was tens steps past confused.  He knew what a bank card was, he had one to his personal account, but he only used it once a month to pull his meager allowance out so he could put that money on his hospital bill.  But now this woman, who claimed she was his new trust council chairperson and advocate, had given him a new one.  It didn’t have the same number even though it was issued by the same bank and branch as his old one.  She’d given him a small box about the size of a shoe box and told him that if he had any questions about the contents to call her, he hadn’t pondered why she hadn’t left a card.  He was used to bank people assuming he carried all that information in his head.

The box had held a neat stack of paperwork, three canceled bills, a tiny little flip phone and the cardboard sleeve that covered the black card Mikael was currently turning over and over in his hands.  He hadn’t known there were still two other bills in his name at the hospital.

He set the card aside and with a resigned sigh started reading through the papers; maybe they would explain some things.

~0~

Four and a half hours later Mikael was starving and still confused.  The flashy little flip phone was his, and had the numbers for his advocate and her two assistants in the directory.  It also had the direct lines for _Schupo_ and _Kripo_ Lehrer and for the _Kripo_ heading the investigation into Gottschalk’s little mischiefs.

Tens of thousands of Euros sorts of mischief according to the papers, Euros stolen from him and the other trustee’s under Gottschalk’s so called care.  Mikael felt sick.  All this time the board thought he was getting three thousand Euros a month not the paltry two hundred.  The little black card gave him access to all the monies he should have had if Gottschalk hadn’t been stealing from him.  Mikael had no idea what to do with over three _hundred **thousand**_Euros.  Even if he bought a car and ate out at every meal it wouldn’t make much of a dent in that huge sum.  And he’d be getting four thousand a month from here on out.  That was just the money the bank was putting forward in good faith, not any penalties, fines and additional fees levied by the court against Gottschalk.

A lot of the rest really made no sense. He understood the part where is outstanding medical bills were paid off, but the pages of financial reports left him with a headache.  Mikael gave up and leaned back flopping backwards onto the bed and stared up at the ceiling for several long minutes.  All he understood was he no longer had to scrimp and save every cent that came his way and if the weather was nasty he didn’t have to go out and play in a metro station if he didn’t want to.

He didn’t have to work if he didn’t **_want_** to, he could sit down and really take those university courses if he wanted, or he could post a bond and become a bartender for real if he wanted to.  He could even travel if he wanted to.  Travel had a lot of appeal to Mikael, he hadn’t been anywhere on holiday since Alexei had died.  Mikael stomped down on that old guilt before it could rise up and overwhelm him.

Mikael rolled over on his belly and focused on the financials again, chewing at his lower lip as he tried to make sense of all the numbers.  After another thirty minutes he gave up with a groan as all the numbers started running together in his mind.  He wanted to call Christian, but he and his band mates were touring again.  Chris said it was just short hops to keep the fan clubs happy and that they’d be back home at the band house to record more on the new album in a week or so.  Mikael made a note to call and leave a voice mail long before then, from what his new advocate was saying he was finally going to be able to go home in a few more days and he didn’t want Chris to worry if he called the room and either got no answer or worse got a complete stranger.

A brisk knocking at his door yanked him out of his thoughts.  Only the hotel staff and the _Schupo_ who watched him ever knocked.  Even Frau Maurer had waited downstairs for the _Schupo_ to bring him down, though he suspected his advocate would be allowed to come upstairs and knock now.  The person who was standing there wasn’t his advocate though, or a _Schupo_; she was just as small but younger and far slimmer than Gerda Maurer.

 “Um,” he started uncertainly, “hello.”  The girl just turned back and smiled at him, she was dressed in rather the same sort of conservative jacket and skirt that Frau Maurer had worn this morning only in blue rather than charcoal gray.

“Hello,” she said cheerfully,” I’m Ida Metzler, Gerda’s assistant?”  Mikael was able to give her a shaky smile and stepped aside to let her in.  She just grinned at him though.

“Oh no, no more hiding in there.  Get your wallet and room keys, we are going out.”  Mikael let out a strangled sound of protest but it was lost as Ida firmly insisted he was going out, he was going to get a decent meal and by god he was going to get some decent clothing that fit him properly.

“This was lent me by a friend,” Mikael said feeling rather defensive as he fisted his hands in the hem of the hoodie Chris had lent him.

“Clearly a friend who is a good bit taller than you,” Ida noted tartly as she shooed him at his wallet.

“Only by a few centimeters,” Mikael protested as he picked up his wallet, strangely heavy with the new bank card and the key to his room. That got him a painfully skeptical look.

“Only if by a ‘few’ you mean six or seven,” was her observation.

“More like three or four,” he grumbled.  Mikael blinked when Ida handed him his new phone.

“Make sure to keep this with you at all times,” her tone and face were very serious.  “Until we can get a tracer band fitted for you it’s our only means of finding you if something happens.”

Mikael gulped and took the phone with numb fingers, tucking it into the pocket opposite his keys.  “Is, is something likely to happen?” he asked weakly as Ida took his elbow in one hand and his battered old jacket in the other.

“No, not really, but _Schupo_ and the bank are still looking for some of the other trustee’s that have an interest in the case.”  She shrugged and gave his jacket a dubious look as they stepped out of the elevator.  “Mostly it’s paranoia; the bank doesn’t want any more scandal or even a hint on non-cooperation between them and the police investigating this horrible incident.”

Mikael felt weird, ten years of struggle condensed down to a ‘horrible incident’ just like that.  Ida was giving his coat looks like she thought the poor old thing needed to be burned on the spot and he was just shrugging it on when one of the desk clerks called out to him.

“Herr Sommer, a message for you.”  Ida frowned as Mikael walked over to accept the slip of paper.

“Thank you,” he murmured wondering who would be calling, he’d talked to Nikki and Chris yesterday and Tara the day before that, everyone else who knew the number talked to one of those three regularly.  The note made him smile though, it was from Chris, letting him know they were about to go on stage but he’d wanted to let Mikael know that in ten days they’d be doing a show in Berlin for the fan club there.

The idea of being able to see Chris again made his belly flip over.

“Good news I see,” came Ida’s voice, and Mikael flushed and stuffed the note deeply into a pocket, vowing to call Chris later.  Now he just had to survive whatever Ida had planned for him.  Mikael gulped as she took his elbow and briskly lead him out into the streets.  He really hated shopping.

~0~

When Mikael crawled back to his hotel room he was firmly convinced Ida was inhuman.  No man should be made to shop for six hours for _clothes_.  Schupo Gerber gave him a sympathetic smile and a pat on the shoulder after he dropped the other double armload of bags in one of the chairs.  But he’d been dragged along as well as Mikael’s police escort, even he had to be tired of being dragged from store to store to store, pillar to post and back again. With a soft reminder to call his friend and eat something the big man slipped out and shut the door.

Mikael groaned.  He needed to hear Christian’s voice now; he just hoped they weren’t busy with something else by now.  Carefully he fished his new phone out and dialed Chris’s number from memory.

“Hello,” Mikael blinked in shock, that was Timo doing his ‘big man why you buggin’ me’ voice.

“Timo?  It’s Mikael.”  He heard a sigh of relief and after the bleeps of buttons being mis-punched he could hear a lot of other sounds.

“Hey man.  We were kind of expecting you to call sometime.  They change your room or something?”  Timo still sounded stressed, but he’d dropped the gruff voice.

“No, I, I got a new bank advocate and she gave me a phone.  I got Chris’s message earlier just as one of her assistants was dragging me out the door.”

“Out the door for what?” that sounded like David, Timo must have put the phone on speaker.  Mikael felt a bit uneasy, he still wasn’t quite sure of his standing with Chris’s band mates.

“Shopping,” Mikael tried and failed to keep the disgust out of his voice.  He could hear the sound of several people laughing, but not Chris’s distinctive chortle.  Then he heard a voice in the background that sounded like it was coming over a public address system, paging a doctor, and his blood froze.  “Where are you guys? Are you all okay?”

“Yeah, we’re okay.  Just had an incident at the show,” Timo sounded tired and David let out in indignant sound.

“Incident, the stage fell in!” things got a bit garbled as Jan and Timo both tried to downplay things as David and Franky both pitched a fit.  A little *beep* and the sounds muted and Juri’s voice came over the speaker.

“We’re all mostly okay, Linke is still getting looked at, but he bumped his head.  We’ve all got bumps and bruises,” Mikael got the vague sound that made him think the drummer had shrugged. “Our equipment took more damage than we did.”  Mikael was finally able to find his voice.

“Equipment can be **_replaced_**!” He didn’t care that he sounded really upset; Juri shouldn’t joke about things like that.  “You guys, you guys can’t be replaced,” Mikael continued plaintively.  A muted conversation and the sound of the phone being passed over to someone else only made Mikael more worried.

“Hey,” Chris’s voice was tired, but Mikael felt his legs go weak as he folded to his knees beside the bed.

“Are you okay?” Mikael knew his voice was wobbly, but didn’t care.  A soft huff of air came over the speaker then Chris was talking again.

“Bump on the head, and some lovely bruises, but my dignity is more beat up than the rest of me.  We all fell more or less straight down when we did one of our synchronized jumps.  We’ll be more careful next time.  Are you okay?”  Mikael managed a shaky laugh.

“Compared to you guys I had it easy, I just had financial papers and a demon assistant drag me on a marathon shopping trip.”

“I think I’d rather what happened to us than a shopping trip,” teased Chris.

They talked a bit more about what Mikael had learned and what the band would be doing given the delays they were sure to have repairing and replacing equipment and rescheduling venues. They talked more about silly inconsequential things that had Timo yelling in the background about ‘no phone sex on the bus’ which made Chris retort they weren’t on the bus yet so Timo could just relax.

When they finally said their goodbyes Mikael had a warm floaty feeling in his belly and while he was still concerned he wouldn’t be as scared as he would have been if he’d found out about the accident without any warning.

Mikael sighed and called for a bit of soup from room service and set about organizing the masses of stuff Ida had decided were absolute necessities.

~0~

Linke stared out the window lost in his own thoughts as they drove back toward home.  The headache that had kept him from sleeping had finally faded to a dull thump under the weight of a double dose of aspirin and now his brain was refusing to shut up so he could get a little rest.  Jan and Juri were zonked out in the front lounge on the couch there and if Linke looked across the bus he knew he’s see Timo and David curled up together on the couch taking up the far wall.  Only Franky had had the good sense to crawl into his bunk for the long drive back to Hamburg.

The snow didn’t let up as they drove east, according to the picture Mikael had sent him Berlin had gotten stoutly snowed under a few days ago and unlike the earlier flurries this one had stuck.  Linke sighed; it wasn’t like it was early for snow in Berlin, he just had half hoped to have an easy few days before they locked themselves up in the studio again.

The powers that be at Universal had gotten wind of a very high tech studio opening up in Berlin not all that far from their main offices and they had decided nothing would be better than for the guys to record in it.  David’s reaction had been spectacular.  While they were all curious about seeing the latest and supposedly greatest advances in recording technology none of them were enthralled with having to scrap the three songs they’d already finished and the four they’d gotten partly done to start over completely from scratch.

Even a promise of reduced publicity requirements for the next few months hadn’t really mollified their guitarist.  It wasn’t like they didn’t like signings or meet and greets, they loved hearing directly from the fans, it was just the idea of dumping all of that old work that had them all a bit grouchy.

David wasn’t going to just scrap what they had, Linke had found a portable hard drive with the space to store everything (one of his own that had been replaced with a smaller, newer one with more space) and they’d carefully shifted everything over as a ‘just in case’ measure.

Linke really wasn’t looking forward to spending the next six to ten weeks holed up in a Berlin hotel. Timo at least could go home to his apartment and more than likely David would go with him, the rest of them were shit out of luck.

Then Linke smiled as he thought back to his last call to Mikael, the poor guy had called in frustration after he’d finally been allowed home and found a work crew making some advocate required ‘improvements’ and Mikael wanted to know just what exactly the crew chief was talking about.  The only real computer person he knew was Chris, Linke had just been glad that Mikael was comfortable enough with him to both ask for help and to show how aggravated he was with the whole process.

Eventually Linke had gotten Mikael to just hand the phone over to the crew chief and had been able to figure out they were wiring the whole house for wireless access as well as catching up on a decade’s worth of maintenance and upgrades to the house’s structure.  In the background he’d heard Mikael wanting to know why they needed access to the old ballroom and a whole other wing of the house that Linke hadn’t even known had existed.  Mikael’s frustration had amused the crew chief and he’d made a comment that had set Linke laughing about Mikael being a volatile little thing and how the right girl would settle that right down.

The poor man had no earthly idea.

Timo had asked after he had hung up if he was sure Mikael wasn’t a girl given that Linke spent almost as much time on the phone with him as Franky did with his current girlfriend.  The lascivious smirk Linke had used to answer Timo’s complaint had made the rapper swear and throw a cushion at his head claiming he didn’t want to know.  That had set off a pillow fight on the bus which had made all of them feel a lot more normal after the upsets in their schedule.

The bus slowing jolted Linke from his thoughts, they were pulling in for a rest and gas stop.  Linke rose with a low groan, he wanted to use a real bathroom and maybe get something to nibble on since it looked like he wasn’t going to get any sleep tonight.

~0~

Mikael cringed at the screen of his laptop when he saw Timo, David, Chris and Franky all take one of their famous synchronized leaps up into the air.  Their feet hit the stage and with a little lurch the stage just collapsed out from under them.  Juri and Jan both scrambled backwards as their equipment tipped into the widening hole.  After that the video whipped wildly around as the girls in the crowd screamed.  Mikael hit escape to get the screen to zoom back out and wondered exactly _why_ he was watching that particular you-tube video again.  He knew the guys were okay, he just couldn’t help but need to see just in case Chris had actually downplayed the severity of the accident.

Jan’s turntable was a total loss as were some of Juri’s drums and David’s guitar and all the amplifiers that had fallen. But the guys themselves were okay, and that was the important thing. Mikael sighed and shoved the laptop away; he slouched back into the confines of his way to new to be comfortable couch and wished Chris and the guys were home already.

Mikael sighed again and rose, it was well after three in the morning and he wasn’t going to get anywhere by staring into the fire and missing Mauser and wanting Chris.  He rose and quietly prowled the house trying to tire his mind out enough that he could maybe get a few hours of sleep before the cleaning service came in the morning to continue working on reversing over a decade’s worth of neglect to the house he’d been born in.

They’d left the old ballroom for last; there might not have been any furniture in the cavernous old room but every scrap of drapery had disintegrated into a layer of thick dust, a cracked window pane had let in water and a whole section of the paneling and floor were going to have to be torn out and replaced.  Fortunately there hadn’t been mice or other vermin in residence, but in a corner of the abandoned garden the work crew had found a shivering wreck of a young cat.

Mikael hadn’t named the poor thing yet, just quietly refused to let the crewman who found him haul him off.  Mauser wouldn’t recognize the place anymore, all but the wingback chairs had been replaced and in one corner was a tower with nooks and shelves covered in dense carpeting that the kitten loved to climb, scratch and sleep on.  The bookshelves in the den, office and library had been added to and all the bedrooms that had held beds had new ones made up with fresh bedding.  The only exception was his own old room; that was still the way he’d left it after Alexei’s funeral.

Alexei’s old recording studio had been cleared out and updated, though Mikael wasn’t sure why, but Frau Maurer had insisted that it should have been done when he’d turned eighteen.  The full remodel of the house was supposed to have begun then as well, and the kitchen redo of last year was supposed to have been done along with a remodel of all the plumbing and fixtures was supposed to have been begun when he’d turned twenty-one.  Frau Maurer had been indignant that only the kitchen had been done and only after the council had learned that the refrigerator hadn’t worked properly in a year and the stove and range hadn’t been in working order in three.

At least the crews had gotten all the bathrooms dealt with fairly quickly, only one, the biggest, was still being worked on the smaller ones were all finished even if only one was ready for use.  The other two would be usable in another day or two once all the grout had fully set.

Seeing another desk in the office still felt weird, the flashy computer sitting on it only made it more surreal.  Mikael still hadn’t opened the big armoire downstairs that hid a television so big he’d stared in shock when he’d seen it for the first time.  He wasn’t sure what all the rest of the electronic gear hidden beside it was, he’d been too intimidated to look.

Frau Maurer had also been indignant that he hadn’t been seen by a grief councilor after his sister’s death.

Mikael had only reluctantly agreed to see someone, he’d been happier about the tracer tag in the pendant on the collar welded around his neck.  After all this time he wasn’t going to be able to let someone tell him Alexei’s death wasn’t his fault, it might not be totally his fault, but if he hadn’t been being childish she would never have been on the road that night for the drunk to hit.  If he’d listened to Richard that night and just called to tell her where he was Alexei would never have hurried home.  She might have hurried to Richard’s to yell at him and drag him home by his ear, but then she wouldn’t have been in the path of that particular drunk driver.

The sound of Christian’s voice singing the chorus to Warum Nicht dragged Mikael out of his guilt and he fished his phone out of his pocket to answer.

“Hey,” Chris sounded exhausted.  “We just got in and are going to go fall flat for a while.”

“Hey,” Mikael answered.  “No further accidents?”  He knew he had a silly little smile; it was just so good to hear Chris’s voice.

“Not involving us, people who can’t drive on snow, yes, but not us.” Chris yawned.  “You weren’t asleep?”

“Nah,” Mikael paced back down the stairs toward the room he’d begun sleeping in once he realized he couldn’t sleep on the couch without having Frau Maurer fuss at him. “Couldn’t sleep, to many changes in the house and Mauser isn’t here to keep the new kitten in line.” That got him a warm chuckle.

“How is the little orange fuzz-ball?”

“Gaining weight and using the litter box, otherwise he’s being cute to the work crews.”

“They’re _still_ working?  I thought they would have been done by now.”  Mikael could hear what sounded like a heavy bag being dropped and a door closing.

“The Ballroom was a mess and they’re going to have to replace some paneling and part of the flooring and they have another day or two on the big bathroom.”  Mikael toed his shoes off and sat down on his bed.  “Everything else is done,” he made a soft snort.  “If you guys need a place to stay in Berlin let me know, everything got upgraded, so I have space like crazy.”  When Chris answered it sounded like he had put the phone on speaker while he stripped off to go to bed.

“We may come knock on your door when we come record.”

“I thought you guys were almost half done recording,” Mikael put a questioning lilt at the end, he hadn’t heard about David having lost everything they had finished.

“Nah, the powers want us to use some new studio,” Chris yawned again and after a beep was talking more normally into the phone. “Some latest greatest thing, but it’s near Universals offices, so we’d have to be at least in Berlin.” Anything else Chris was going to say got cut off by another yawn.

“You sound like you’re about to drop.  Get some sleep we can talk, um, well in the morning isn’t right, but later, okay?”  Mikael could almost see the sleepy smile just from the tone of Christian’s voice.

“Yeah, long ass drive home.  I’ll see about getting Mauser back home to you,” after yawning again Chris said his good nights and Mikael responded in kind and disconnected the call.

Now he felt like he could sleep.

~0~

Mauser let out another pathetic little miaow as Linke pulled into the driveway by Mikael’s house.  Linke put the car in park and set the emergency brake before giving the cat a dour look.

“You’re getting repetitive cat.  This is a lot safer that being wrapped up in an old blanket and**_ you_** didn’t have to deal with idiots on the road.  Fucking idiot tourists,” Linke sighed and released his seatbelt.  Mauser let out a little chirp noise

To Linke’s surprise there were only three other vehicles parked on the street and one in the driveway, with Mikael’s comments about work crews he’d expected a lot more vehicles to be crowding around.  He hoped Mikael was around and not to frazzled by dealing with a horde of strangers.

 Something Linke had learned over the course of the last weeks was that while Mikael did a very good ‘public’ face he was a rather private person, something the entire band understood all too well.  More amusing he had no compunction in telling off journalists.  One had actually asked him about his relationship with the band after a few photos of all of them in the square the day Timo had gone ape-shit at him had hit the press.

Mikael’s reaction to the woman asking about his relationship with Timo had provoked a response that even had the rapper sniggering when he saw the video.  But the woman in question was always looking for some hint that Timo was gay, so Mikael’s reaction of ‘if you think _I’m_ going to rank higher than a pretty stacked blond on Timo’s scale of things to do after hang out with friends and make music you have a far higher estimation of my appeal than is reasonable.’ He’d followed it up with answering her question of if Timo would ever kiss David with ‘if he takes that dare I want to be there to see it, just to see what kind of forfeit we all have to fork over.’  The incredulous and sarcastic tones he’d put behind his answers had Timo laughing his ass off when he saw the interview aired and had gone a long way toward making Paul more comfortable with the idea of the young man being anywhere near his charges.

Most of the interviews Mikael had to do were the sort where he got pounced on the street about the court case and the ongoing investigation behind it.  So far he’d kept to a quiet but firm answer that he couldn’t talk about the case.  Only one reporter had gotten pushy beyond that and had gotten a sharp answer of was she deaf, he wasn’t allowed to discuss the matter, if she wanted more information he could talk to the bank and the police as they were far more likely to be able to give her information than he was.

The next time they had talked after that fateful interview Mikael had asked why Timo hadn’t decked one of the reporters.  Timo’s answer of cameramen made Mikael snark that if Timo decked the reported he’d deck the cameraman and steal the camera.  David had been shocked; but everyone else had laughed, which had provoked David into scolding them all, which of course had made them all laugh that much harder.

With a sigh Linke opened his door and grabbed Mauser’s cat carrier and his overnight bag and got out.  The rest could wait a bit. With a huff Linke shut his door, he swore Mauser had put on weight with André, he didn’t think the cat had been this heavy before.  He shivered when the wind cut around the house and blasted them both; Mauser just huddled down and yowled.  Getting to the entryway was a relief and the door opening mere moments after his knock was a blessed surprise.

Seeing Mikael’s back as he addressed another person in icy tones was a far less pleasant surprise.  That it was an older white haired man in a professional suit that screamed shrink at him didn’t help.

“I still do not see the point Herr Unger.  At this point trying to reassign blame is pointless.”  Linke blinked at the other man who was shaking his head in what looked like saddened resignation.

“I still think it would do you good to admit you are not the cause of your sister’s death.”  Linke froze, that was not what he’d expected to hear, who was this guy?

“I do not wish to discuss it.”  Mikael’s tone was as flat and cold as he’d ever heard it, and Linke could see the faint tremors running down Mikael’s back, if he didn’t collapse within ten seconds after this guy was gone he’d be surprised.

The older man sighed again and nodded.  “I will see you in a week then.” He gave Linke a small nod and stepped past him and outside to walk to the other car in the driveway.  Mikael’s only reaction was a tight lipped nod and to shut the door firmly.  He rested his forehead on the door and shuddered.

“Sorry, didn’t mean for you to have to see that.”

Linke dropped his bag and then set down Mauser’s carrier to let the big cat out to reclaim his territory, he had the idle hope that Mauser’s first reaction on meeting the kitten wasn’t a homicidal one as he rose and rested a hand on Mikael’s shoulder.

“It’s okay.  Who _was_ that?”  He had a suspicion; he just wanted to be sure before he opened his mouth.  Mikael turned around and gave him a wan smile before cuddling up into the hug Linke had been hoping for on the drive here.

“My advocate appointed shrink, Frau Maurer thinks it’ll help fix things that aren’t broken.”  Linke grimaced in sympathy, sooner or later Mikael was going to have a screaming fit over people doing things ‘for his own good’ without consulting him first.

“Sometimes it’s good to talk about things,” Linke managed to hedge as he snuck a hand up to stroke the fine hairs at the nape of Mikael’s neck.  That got him a sour sounding scoffing noise.

“I’m not a girl who needs hand holding and to do in depth discussions of feelings over things long past.”  The sound of a feline scuffle saved Linke from having to find an answer to that, they separated and went to make sure Mauser didn’t murder the kitten.  Later after the first of several feline scuffles was settled and Linke had brought his other bags in they had forgotten about the whole exchange and had moved on to more important things.  The contents of the entertainment armoire in the living room were far more interesting and Linke was more interested in corrupting Mikael into a proper techie geek than in anything else.

~0~

Later that night after the work crews had gone home Linke left Mikael asleep on the new couch with Mauser securely sleeping on his human’s stomach and went exploring.  Mikael had told him to be a bit careful in the ballroom but that otherwise the house was safe to wander through.

Linke hadn’t noticed the archway from the music room before, closed the doors looked like a more elaborate bit of paneling so he could see how he’d overlooked it before.  A peek inside and he saw a chunk of floor ripped up and part of the wall stripped down to base bricks.  Other than that it looked rather like a larger older version of the band hall of the band house complete with small stage and ludicrously high ceilings.

A formal staircase attracted his curiosity so Linke carefully picked his way over the floor to walk up the stairways stately curve.  The balcony had him stifling the childish urge to find a quantity of water balloons to keep in stock until there were a lot of people below.  David had swatted him many times in the past for wishing for water balloons or water guns to liven up a deadly dull industry party, even if Timo and Jan had both looked like they would have helped.

The carpet of the hallway was new and muffled his footsteps as Linke indulged his desire to snoop.  Most of the rooms were small, many completely unfurnished.  He found what looked like an old nursery complete with a pair of rocking horses he would have adored as a child.  One was less horse and more hippogriff complete with feathered head and soft half folded wings.  Linke stroked a gentle finger over the toy’s painted beak and smiled faintly at the ferocity in its golden yellow glass eyes.  There was a pair of worn spots on those feathered wings where a pair of small hands must have grabbed hold over and over.

He could easily see a child hanging on there and urging the creature to fly higher and faster.  The adventures he would have gone on as a child with a toy like that made Linke smile in amused memory.  The rest of the contents of the nursery were the more usual furniture and toys, dolls that probably would have been worth a fortune to a collector, balls and books.  Linke flipped the pages of a German primer that had probably been current at the end of the First World War.  He shook off the unease at that thought and moved on.

The bedrooms on the top floor were small, and looked to have been newly refurbished.  But one and all they were lacking anything to make Linke pause.  The doorway at the end of the hall was more interesting; on one side it was just a door on the other a shallow set of shelves holding small trinkets.  Linke laughed and turned the knob several times to see the statuette of a hound turn in place.  The rooms he’d just passed must have been servant’s rooms at some point in time.  Linke let the door close and turned to face the library, he spent several minutes quickly perusing what was on the shelves.  The classics he’d expected, two out of date encyclopedia sets that might be amusing just to see what had changed in the past fifteen and forty years respectively.  A rather large section in Greek and Latin which might bear searching through later and several shelves of science fiction and fantasy novels, many of which had dog-eared pages.  Linke’s fingers brushed over a well worn copy of The Hobbit with fond memories of his own first copy now long since worn to tatters.

With a soft sigh Linke moved on, the next rooms were guest rooms and had about as much character as the hotel rooms he’d stayed in over the last few months.  Admittedly they were nice; they just were empty of anything interesting.  Then Linke opened a door to a room that had been lived in and felt his breath catch.

Like the other rooms it was clean, but this room had posters for bands that no longer played hung on the walls and a very pretty actress that Linke would admit to having once had a poster of on his wall when he was a teenager, but only after being threatened.  The desk was littered with what looked like old schoolbooks and the remains of one last writing project.  Linke snuck a peek, it was a draft of an essay for a long ago book report.  He grimaced he remembered doing those for his English classes too, and he remembered hating them because the books were always so lame.

A model airplane hung in the corner of the room and model cars lined a shelf, but the thing that most caught his attention were the figurines of mythical creatures.  Linke saw several dragons, a centaur and a mermaid just on a quick glance each tucked into a little nook or corner of its own.  One of the dragons had its head resting on a book as if it was guarding it for its absent owner to pick up and read later.  With a soft sigh Linke turned and left, it was pretty clear Mikael didn’t sleep here any longer, but hadn’t had the heart to go through and sweep away all signs of his childhood.

He continued down the hallway.

The room at the top of the stairs was the office he remembered from before.  Other than the addition of a very nice desktop computer and some more shelving and workspace it was fundamentally unchanged.  Linke stared at the empty expanse of the desk then turned and headed downstairs.

He found another set of empty guest rooms, clearly at some point the family had either been much larger or had entertained a lot of guests, probably both.  That just made Linke wonder it Mikael had lost relatives somewhere.  He did note that if the guys chose to take up Mikael’s offer they’d have plenty of space.  Linke had found two bathrooms on this side of the house that were bigger and nicer than the ones at the band house, he smiled.  No waiting on Franky to style his hair when you desperately needed to go pee.  They both had the shower and bathtub and toilets behind little half walls away from the vanity and mirrors.  Clearly redesigned in some long past remodel and designed with a woman’s needs in mind.  Not that it would serve a clutch of young men badly in any way though.  Linke took a long look at the huge tub; that looked like it could be a lot of fun to bathe in company in.

Then Linke found the master bath and swore under his breath.  It had a hot tub.  It was still empty of water and the room smelled faintly of paint but it was huge.  The shower stall had a note to please not use it for a few more days to give the grout time to fully set but Linke was more interested in the fact it was big enough for three _easily_ to shower in, and had what looked like a ridiculous number of shower heads

It also had an abundance of chrome hand rails that Linke could easily see tying someone to or being tied to for all sorts of shower sex games.  Linke swallowed hard and adjusted himself in his cargo pants.  He hurried on to see what the bedroom attached looked like.

He blinked at the room he found.  Huge bed, simple furnishing and warm golden wood, the duvet was a soft dark green utterly unlike the cream, burgundy and blue of the guest rooms.  A heavy chair with a guitar sitting in it made Linke think he’d just found where Mikael was sleeping, but the battered stuffed dragon perched on the pillows made him wonder.  Linke had a stuffed bear as a child that had gone with him on a great many ‘pretend’ adventures but Mikael didn’t seem to sort to hang onto a childhood toy.

Then again Mikael had admitted to sleeping with Linke’s jacket and later his sweatshirt, so perhaps this old fellow had been called back into service.  Linke stroked a finger over the worn plush on the dragon’s crested head then down his softly ridged back to where the bent wings came out.

“What kind of secrets has he told you,” wondered Linke as he petted one worn green wing.  The green dragon only looked up at him with silvered glass eyes.  Linke mused on all the secrets he’d told Theodore as a child and the things he sometimes heard his brother Sebastian telling his bear when he was sure no one else could hear and smiled before turning to leave.  The couch downstairs was more than deep enough for him to cuddle Mikael a little with the excuse they hadn’t set him in a room last night.

Maybe he’d get the chance for more before they guys caught up to him and headed for the studio.

~0~

David let out a low groan and tried to stifle the impulse to bang his head **_hard_** on the console in front of him.  Two weeks into rerecording everything and he really deeply wanted to throttle the technician that came along with the use of the equipment.  David wasn’t an idiot or a child, he knew how to handle the sound and mixing boards, these weren’t _that_ much different than the ones he knew.  While the software was much nicer than what they’d had before it was ridiculously easy to use.  Between the three of them he, Jan and Linke had figured out some very useful shortcuts that saved them a huge amount of time without sacrificing any sound quality at all.

They didn’t _need_ this pompous, overbearing **_idiot_** hovering and telling them what to do two seconds after they had already _done_ it.  Timo was seething and while a seething Timo could still rap quite well most of the songs didn’t **_need_** that edge of rage under the lyrics.  Even Juri was fed up with the idiot and since they mostly didn’t need him right now he had exercised discretion by simply not being there.

Paul had tried soothing the ruffled feathers but the idiot just would not **stop**.  No matter how good the sound was this idiot was making this whole experience very unpleasant.  And to make it worse the caterers kept screwing up the food. 

The last three studio meals had had nothing that he or Timo could eat.  Even Timo blistering paint off the walls hadn’t made a dent in the idiot’s level of, well sheer **_idiocy_**.

Linke’s voice was the only thing that kept David from throwing a screaming fit.

“You. Out. Now.”  Linke overrode the techs protests. “I do not care.  You are making this job six times harder than it needs to be.  We are not children, or idiots.  We are professionals and you are driving our producers crazy.  If we have a problem we will call you.  Now go **_Away_**!”

David let out a small sob of relief as Linke used all one hundred and eighty-four centimeters of his height and the scathing intensity of his voice to drive the obnoxious tech right out of the control room.

“Don’t get happy to fast,” warned Linke his tone still acidic with irritation and David groaned.

“They fucked up the food again.” It wasn’t even a question.  The sound of Timo screaming in frustration echoed down the hallway from the break room through the open control room door.

“Yep, but they added a fruit tray this time, at least, idiots.”  Linke scrubbed a hand over the back of his neck. “This is really getting old.”

“Tell me about it,” groaned David.  “You ready to try again?”  Linke nodded and headed back into the booth.

David flipped on the intercom as Linke settled himself on the stool behind the microphone.  Linke shuffled the music back to the beginning and settled the headphones on his ears.

“From measure six?” Linke asked and took several deep breaths to calm himself.

“Cuing measure five, now,” David settled back into recording, grateful for the small mercy of the idiot not looming over him now.

If they could just get this track down he’d be happy to take a break and start up again in the morning when he wasn’t so frazzled.

~0~

Timo stared at what was supposed to be their catered dinner in mixed disgust and dismay.  There was a fruit tray to go with the sandwiches, but every sandwich was turkey or ham, nothing remotely vegetarian.  And this was fuck up number four. The sound of a light tap on the door of the break room made him jump.  But the sight of Mikael with his arms full of pizza boxes made him smile.

“I come bearing real food,” the other man joked with a wry smile.

“Thank god, these idiots are trying to poison David and I.”  Timo walked around the table to help Mikael lay his burdens down, he sighed in relief when he recognized the pizza place printed on the boxes, and this place did _real_ vegetarian and vegan pizza, not just cheese pizza with vegetables.

“Frank warned me that they’d screwed up pretty badly,” the dubious look Mikael shot the trays made Timo feel better.  “I’m not a veggie and I’m not sure I would eat those.”  Timo popped open a box and reached in as Mikael got himself a bottle of water.  He groaned at the wonderful taste of Pesto, tomato and extra garlic.

“Did you guys finally chase off the tech guy who was making David so nervous,” asked Mikael as he nibbled a slice of his own. Timo nodded as he chewed.  After he swallowed he answered.

“Linke finally lost it and scared him off.  You came up on your own?”  Timo didn’t think Mikael had gotten a car yet, though he had watched Linke and Juri both nudging unsubtly toward specific models; Juri leaning toward more room and Linke toward the better gas mileage and higher safety ratings.  It was funny to watch.  Mikael nodded.

“Franky and Juri went grocery shopping,” Mikael shuddered. “And Franky was turning the kitchen into a disaster area when Jan got back and let us know the caterers had screwed up.  Again.”  Mikael gave Timo a lopsided smile and a shrug.  “I figured I’d better bring real food or you guys would be too busy snarking when you got back to get a decent nights rest.”

“If things kept going we’d have been busy hiding a body,” Timo groused, feeling obscurely grateful for Mikael’s quiet support.  The crew liked him and considered him to almost be one of them.  The wry smile his unhappy remark got helped Timo calm back down, having real food helped tremendously too.

“How’s recording going otherwise,” Mikael asked.  Given he’d been careful to not push for information before and sounded truly interested Timo decided to answer with more than a generic ‘good’ like he’d done before

“We’re almost caught up to where we were when the powers said scrap everything and start over.”  Mikael’s eyebrows went up in surprise, which made Timo feel rather proud of himself and his band mates.  If people would just quit fucking with them they’d have the album ready to go in a couple months tops.

“That’s good.”  Timo stifled a smirk as he saw David and Linke come in behind Mikael.

“Oh god, real food,” breathed David as he reached into the open box for a slice of pizza.  The guitarist all but inhaled the first slice as he walked around the table to sit beside Timo. 

Timo was busy watching the subtle interplay between Mikael and Linke though.  The hand Linke rested on Mikael’s shoulder and the way Mikael looked up and smiled for Linke, they were just too damn cute.  If the sap got any thicker they’d be sticking to the floors.

A glance toward David showed him David was watching without looking like he was watching as they all worked on the pizza.  Linke was toying idly with the fine hairs at the nape of Mikael’s neck when Timo saw it; a flash of solid silver where there hadn’t been before.

“What’s that,” he asked reaching over the table to tug Mikael’s collar down so he could see.  When he did Timo felt more than a touch disturbed, there was a solid looking silver oblong on a heavy gauge wire resting close around Mikael’s throat.  And under Timo’s thumb was a discolored spot, like the wire had been heated somehow.  Mikael wouldn’t meet his eyes when he answered.

“It’s my leash.”

“What?”  Oh no, Timo didn’t like that implication at all.

“It’s the tracker tag I have to wear.”  Linke shot Timo a warning look but the rapper was too indignant to heed the unspoken warning.

“Have to?  You aren’t a criminal.”  Timo felt David’s hand on his shoulder and began wondering if he was the last to know.

“No,” answered Mikael lifting his head, and Timo felt his throat close up at the resigned sadness in those green eyes. “But this is better than being shut up in a room.”  Timo winced and ducked his head.

“That’s fucked up.”  He didn’t like it, hell Timo thought it was stupid and cruel but clearly Mikael had done the math and felt it was the better option.  If his choices were wearing a collar or being shut up in a room Timo was pretty sure he’d take the collar too.

“Yeah.  Reality is sometimes though.”  Linke put an arm around Mikael’s shoulders and gave him a half hug, Timo swallowed hard when he saw the tired slump when Mikael leaned back into Linke’s side.

“Guys?” they all shifted to face Paul.  “There are blizzard warnings going out, we’re going now.”

Linke and David both swore and Mikael quickly began packing up the fruit tray and unfinished pizzas to take with them.  Timo groaned and went after their jackets as Linke went after instruments and David went after his laptop.  Once they gathered in the lobby Paul asked what they wanted to do.  He and Conrad had places to stay.

“Do you two want to stay at my place with the rest of the guys?” Mikael offered tentatively.  “I have space.”

David and Timo exchanged a look, it would be bigger than his apartment and they could get other band stuff done at least.

“Yeah.” Timo answered for both of them.  “Thanks man.”  Mikael gave him a smile that suddenly made Timo understand why Linke worked so hard to get it turned on him.  Holy crap but Mikael lit up when he really smiled.

“That’s what friends are for.”

~0~

Paul dropped Conrad at his grandmothers and diverted by Timo’s apartment so Timo and David could run in and grab a few changes each.  The he swung by a market and made them stock up on a few things as a ‘just in case’ measure.  Timo had grinned at the way Mikael fidgeted, but managed to not laugh at how he’d bitten his lip to keep silent.

Then again Mikael had said Franky had gone shopping, and being dragged on a Franky trip to the market could be a very scary thing indeed.

After Paul dropped them off (and had politely refused Mikael’s offer of space) they piled into the house.  David had gotten Paul to promise to call when he got safely to his sister’s house.  Then Timo found out why Mikael had twitched about another store trip.

Franky had run mad, absolutely and utterly mad.  It looked like a grocers truck had upended in the kitchen.  There were boxes of canned goods and dry staples piled on the floor and Franky looked to be contentedly organizing his little heart out.

“What the hell,” started Timo in shock.  Linke snickered at the stunned look on the rappers face, but stopped at the pained sigh from Mikael.

“My advocate was here this morning.”

“What does Frau Maurer have to do with Franky having robbed a grocer’s lorry,” asked David, sounding lost.

The pained wince and resigned sigh made Linke stop and come back to rest his hands on Mikael’s shoulders.

“She made some comment about the state of the pantry didn’t she?”  It wasn’t really a question but Mikael winced again and nodded anyway.  Linke sighed and shared a look with Timo and David.  “And Franky offered to help didn’t he?” Linke’s tone was resigned; they all had a feeling they knew where this was going

“Frau Maurer gave him an unlimited budget,” Mikael said in a small voice.

“Oh Jesus fuck,” Timo groaned and threw his hands up in the air in defeat.

“How many stores did he buy out?” asked David in a rather awed tone as they looked back into the kitchen.

“None,” chirped Jan, “He only hit five.”

Timo and David shared a look as David mouthed ‘**_five_**’ in shock.  Mikael just groaned and picked his way into the kitchen to put the leftover pizza and fruit tray in the fridge.  Linke just sighed and followed, looking over the pantry and open cupboards in resigned amusement.

“Do you have any other storage space we can start putting the rest of this,” asked Franky, sounding **_far_** too happy for anyone’s comfort.

“There’s a bigger pantry downstairs,” answered Mikael.  “Oma used to make jam.”

“You have a downstairs?’ Linke asked, he sounded startled, he had thought he’d explored the entire house already.  Mikael gave him an odd little half smile that had Timo and David sharing a long look again.

“I have an attic too,” Mikael answered in a teasing tone as he walked over to a bit of wall that looked like any other section of heavily decorated paneling.  “Frank?  You might want to watch this.”

Franky and the others gathered around to watch as Mikael slid what looked like a carved flower down to reveal an open gap, reached in and with a slight *click* pulled the whole section out.  Once it pivoted partly open Mikael slid it a bit sideways and then back into the wall.

“What is it with your house and hidden doors,” grumbled Linke as Mikael reached in a flipped a light on to reveal a wide stairway going down.  Jan squeaked and leaned forward to figure out the latch as Juri let out a resigned sigh and turned to help Franky start moving boxes off the kitchen counters.  Mikael just shared a few murmured comments with Linke that had David blinking in surprise as the two walked down the stairs to make sure all the lights were on and necessary doors opened.

David took the box Juri handed him and followed Mikael down and around a corner to the left as Linke paused and stared to the right.  Timo growled as he came down with his armload.

“Less gawking more moving, you can snoop later.”  Linke sighed and followed Timo back to the left and shook his head in quiet amusement at the sight of Franky all but bouncing as he started unloading boxes onto shelves.  The pantry upstairs was crazy big to Timo’s mind, this one if you took all the shelves, storage bins and the worktable out it was almost as big as his apartment.  Admittedly his apartment was tiny, but that didn’t change the fact that this storage room was huge.

And Franky was hyper.  Timo suddenly was very glad he and Linke and David had been holed up in the studio all day.  It looked like Franky had been allowed his every twisted little kitchen wish in terms of supplies.  When he went back up for another armful Timo paused to look in the upstairs pantry, the cupboards and fridge.  From the pile of apples, bananas, and oranges Franky had hit the really good grocers in his sweep.  And Timo hoped some of those were becoming banana bread, he didn’t think he could eat them all before they started to go bad.  The rest would probably be fine for a week or two. Then he found the box with the more exotic fruit, he recognized the pineapple and the mangoes beyond that he wasn’t sure, so when he saw three kinds of pears in another box he just went on to the next that held sugar and flour and didn’t ask.

He was shaking his head as he carried another box of canned goods downstairs.  Now he understood why Mikael had sounded like a little kid, his advocate was a fucking _loon_ letting Franky go wild on her nickel.  There had been _grapes_ in the fridge, three types that he knew on sight, and enough fresh vegetables to feed the crew for a week.

When Timo and David came up for another load they saw Juri frowning pensively at the voice on the radio.  They shared a glance and paused to listen as well.  They were putting out three day storm warnings and advising people to stay where they were if it was possible and to not travel at all until the storm had passed.

David’s phone ringing made them all jump.

“Hallo? Paul, oh good.  You’re home?  Yes, we’re just heard the three day warnings going out.” David paused to listen for a moment then smiled. “No, no we’re good on supplies.  Mikael’s advocate made the mistake of letting Franky run wild at the grocers.  We could feed the whole crew for a month.” 

Timo just rolled his eyes and shared a wry grin with Juri as they went back to hauling.  With all of them it still took almost half an hour to shift the amazing pile that Franky had accumulated.  Timo was somewhat comforted by the interesting assortment of canned soy meat substitutes he saw in at least two of the boxes.  Some of them were things he and David both adored but rarely bothered to get because of cost and hassle, others were things they had been curious about but hesitant to try given the cost per tin.  Five Euros wasn’t a big loss if something was horrible but thirty was, and the one tin of vegan scallops was almost thirty the last time he and David had looked.  Timo wondered if Mikael’s idiot advocate had realized what she was doing when she’d given Franky the chance to run wild.

Timo paused and stared at the rest of what he could see of the basement.  The main room looked like it had been a game room at one point, with a dart board and pool table and a pair of very old pinball machines.  That wasn’t what had his attention though; he was staring meditatively at a recording sign over the door at the end of the short hallway to the right of the stairs.  The light was out, but now he wondered what was in that room.

If nothing else it would let them play around with a few songs for the album.  They had most of the play list pretty well set but given the upheaval of the last month there were a few new songs kicking around among them all.  Stuff that might be good for a couple singles if nothing else.

Timo glanced back over his shoulder at where Linke and Mikael were flirting with each other as they helped Franky organize the storage room, grimaced at how sickeningly cute they were being and determinedly walked over and opened the door.

David came over at Timo’s low whistle and let out one of his own.  This was a nice little set up; it was smaller than the one they had attached to the band house but it had a nicer computer system attached and from the neat row of manuals there was some nice software on that system.  Not as cutting edge as the place they were using but a half step above what they had at the band house. Timo poked around a bit as David prowled the recording booth itself.  It was small enough that putting Juri and his drums in it would be a strain for size.  They might just fit, but if they did nothing and no one else would.  Jan would have claustrophobic fits with his turntables in there but the rest of them would probably be okay.

A thud made Timo turn around and look out the door.  He half expected the noise had come from one of the guys dropping a missed box of something or other on the worktable in the center of the storage room.  Timo blinked when he saw that Linke had shoved Mikael up into the wall and was kissing him breathless.

“What was, oh.” David was right at Timo’s left shoulder looking down the hallway at their bassist.  “That didn’t take long.”  Timo felt slender fingers tucking into his right front pocket as David cuddled into his side.

“You didn’t see them being all cute in the break room earlier.”

“They were being cute over pizza?” David asked in surprise, blinking at Timo’s smirk.

“If the sap had been any thicker you’d have stuck to the floor,” Timo drawled back as he tucked an arm around David’s hips.  David just gave him a sweet little smile.

“Linke has been being awfully cute on the phone with him these last couple weeks,” David mused as he watched the fist Mikael had in Linke’s hair loosen and the fingers stroke over the skin at the nape of Linke’s neck.  Linke shivered a bit and the two bumped noses and shared a secretive little smile.  David glanced over at Timo, Timo might be smirking now but the two of them had shared little smiles and stares like that on countless occasions.  David bumped Timo with his hip and gave him a flirty little smile just as Mikael ducked his head and Linke pulled him away from the wall to hug him a little closer.

Timo finally broke and let out a chortle of glee which made Mikael jump and Linke turn and growl.  David sighed and slapped a hand over Timo’s mouth before he got the first words past his teeth.

“No,” David warned as Timo started to give him a wounded look. “Timo no.  Unless you want Linke to start with tales of our foibles.”  Timo licked David’s palm and David yelped yanking it away from the rappers mouth.

“But Davii, they’re being syrupy cute,” Timo protested, and then gave himself mental points as Mikael blushed.  Linke wouldn’t let Mikael slip back up the stairs though; he just hugged the shorter man securely into his chest and whispered in his ear.

“Did Linke harass us when we were doing the sicky cute stuff?”  David prompted as he wiped his hand on his jeans.  Timo sighed and gave in.

“No,” Timo answered grudgingly, and pouted at David.

“Does Linke harass us now when we do couple stuff?” David prodded again.

“No,” Timo sighed, the worst they got from Linke was a quirk of an eyebrow or a knowing smile, not the full on razzing Jan gave them. David gave him a _look_ and Timo capitulated.  He could never stand up to David when the guitarist gave him that look; it was completely unfair how thoroughly David had him whipped.

“Okay, as long as they don’t do kissy noises I’ll shut up.”

“Kissy noises,” asked Mikael sounding faintly horrified.

“Franky,” answered Linke.  Timo had to fight to keep from laughing outright at the resigned look on Linke’s face and the faintly horrified look on Mikael’s face.

“If I make kissy noises feel free to punch me,” Mikael said with a shudder that made Timo break up laughing.  David just rolled his eyes and grinned when Linke quirked an eyebrow and answered.

“I think I have a better way to keep that from happening.”

“Uh?” Mikael’s eyes went round as Linke pushed him back into the wall and lightly bumped noses.  David tried and failed to stifle a giggle at the deer in the headlights look on Mikael’s face as Linke started kissing him again.  It wasn’t the hot kiss they’d witnessed before, just a quick reminder of what the bassist was capable of.

“I have ways of keeping your mouth occupied,” Linke warned in a soft husky tone that had David tugging Timo toward the stairs.

“**_Christian_**,” Mikael yelped as Linke let him go and went trotting up the stairs before David could drag Timo up them.

“What?” Linke paused halfway up and turned back with a wicked grin.  “You want a practical demonstration?”

Mikael was hot on Linke’s heels as the bassist ran the rest of the way up the stairs.

“How about we find a room and you give me a practical demonstration of your own,” David playfully offered.

Timo all but dragged David up the stairs to their room.

~0~

Three days later and the stupid snow was _still_ coming down fast enough that the road crews weren’t keeping pace.  Linke had called his sister and learned she was at home with their parents and brother and that they were fine.  Their mom was getting some spectacular snow shots with her camera in the brief breaks in the weather though.  André had emailed him a few and Linke had been impressed, the shot of a raccoon fishing through a gap in the ice covering the little creek that ran behind the house had been amazing and he’d laughed out loud at the shot of the red squirrel raiding their bird feeder, his russet coat the only splash of color against the grays and whites.

They’d taken advantage of the brief lull yesterday to play a bit in the show in the back and side gardens of the house.  Jan had been getting twitchy with being shut in and Juri had decided that tossing the DJ into a snowdrift was a good cure.  Jan had of course retaliated by stuffing fistfuls of snow down the collars of everyone else.  The free-for-all snow fight that had followed had ended with all of them being half frozen and soaked through when they had tumbled back inside still laughing breathlessly.

Franky had just given them a **_look_** and after making sure none of them were frozen for real the singer had gone back to the kitchen to take fresh cookies out of the oven and to start a large batch of cocoa.  Linke had remembered following Mikael in when the smaller man had gone hunting hot tea to thaw his fingers out.  Mikael had barely gotten the kettle on when Linke had started warming them both up; they never had gotten the tea they’d gone after.  Franky had chased them out of the kitchen when he’d caught them necking against the sink.

Linke shifted a little as the memory made certain bits of his anatomy stand up.  All they had done was a lot of kissing and a little petting; Linke grumbled a bit as he shifted again.  His band mates had an extraordinary instinct for when Linke was about to press for just a bit more and so far had interrupted him _every_ single time.

It wasn’t like the other pairs weren’t getting lucky, Linke had seen Juri getting even for the last sleep sucking incident by tying Jan’s hands and slowly driving the DJ crazy with his tongue.  Linke had heard Jan begging and had gone to see what had gotten the little blond so worked up.  Seeing Jan dangling from one of the heavy hooks in the entry way desperately squirming to try and get Juri’s mouth on his cock had done things to Linke’s libido.  Jan had been utterly helpless and exposed to Juri’s teasing mouth and clever fingers and looked like he was enjoying every second.

And Timo, this morning he’d come downstairs to find Timo sprawled out on the thick rug in front of the fire getting his brains leisurely sucked out of his cock by a playful David.  If anyone had a right to bitch it was Franky who had to make do with porn, phone sex and his right hand.  Not that the guys wouldn’t be glad to help out, it was just Franky didn’t go that way and any attempts had the poor singer going limp really damn fast.

Right now though, they weren’t doing sex games; Franky was cooking, Juri and Jan were playing Halo with Timo and David and Mikael was curled at Linke’s feet just watching.  Linke had been playing earlier when they had been doing free for all play rather than two man teams and after the fourth game where he’d stomped his friends flat he’d gotten bored and gone after a book.

The tale of Bilbo’s adventures just wasn’t holding his attention now when he kept getting distracted by the tiny threads of red and gold that the firelight kept highlighting in Mikael’s brown hair.  Even the white patch wasn’t a solid white, Linke noticed, there were threads of pure silver in there and a bit of soft gray around the edges where white and brown blended.

With a soft sigh Linke marked his page with one of his picks and set the book aside and curled on his side on the couch to just watch his favorite musing subject.

The patch of white hair covered a scar Linke knew, he’d felt it under his thumb many times now that Mikael would take being pounced and kissed willingly even with the rest of the band watching.  Linke still didn’t know where the scar came from, he just knew Mikael hadn’t had it as a child, and there were enough pictures that Linke could see pretty clearly when it had started turning up.  The portrait of him with his parents and sister had him with a uniform head of mid brown hair, only the pictures of just him and his sister showed the ever enlarging patch of white.  The last portrait showing Mikael perched on a stool with a guitar and his sister standing beside him in a long formal gown showed the patch as being about a third of the size it was now.  Linke idly stroked the fingers of his right hand through the fine hairs; Mikael turned his attention briefly from his absorption in the action on the TV screen to see what he wanted only to be sucked back in when Jan let out a delighted ‘**_yes_**’ and Timo swore savagely about being shot in the back.

Linke smirked, he’d warned Timo about that spot on the map and that Jan liked lurking high where you couldn’t see him from the lower level.  He should know, Jan used it on him every chance he got.  A streak of orange followed by a black and white blur attracted everyone’s attention.  Mauser was still being careful to show Affe, as Mikael had eventually called the kitten, that there was one feline ruler in this house and Mauser was it.  Fortunately Mauser tended to show his dominance by steamrolling the kitten and after he pinned the smaller cat down washing his face until he yowled.  The only safe place for Affe to hide was on the shoulder of Juri or in Timo’s lap.

The kitten had decided Timo was his best bet and was worming his way up a yelping Timo’s shirt to hide.

“**_Fuck_**! _Cat_? Damn-it Davii, you could _help_ here.”  Timo flopped on his back and tried to fish the kitten out of his shirt without getting his shirt shredded by sharp claws. Affe seemed to understand claws on the humans was bad but he hadn’t learned not to grab cloth and forgot that there was often skin under that cloth. 

Jan hit quit on the game and after he and David both got their giggles under control they rescued Timo and his favorite shirt from the kitten.  Mauser just hopped into Jan’s abandoned chair and curled up like that had been his plan all along.

Franky yelling from the kitchen that it was food got all of them up and moving toward the smaller breakfast area off the kitchen.  Mikael didn’t like the formal dining room and the big stiff room made the rest of them uncomfortable as well so they crowded around the smaller table.  Linke didn’t mind as it let him sneak little touches in and knew Juri didn’t object as long as Jan didn’t squeal and jump if he hit a ticklish spot.  A forkful of salad dumped on his head was one thing, a half glass of orange juice was entirely another.

The meal was something of an experiment from how Franky was chewing his lip but from the way David’s eyes lit up it must have been something the guitarist had run into somewhere and wanted to have again.  To Linke it looked like some sort of risotto and scallops, but if David was happy to see it that meant the scallops were from one of those tins of soy fakes.  That alone made him wary, some of the fakes were really good, some weren’t fit for use as fertilizer.

Mikael wasn’t as wary of the attempt as Linke, Jan and Juri were, but he didn’t know that Franky’s few truly spectacular food failures tended to be when he tried to make something vegetarian that normally wasn’t.  Mere mention of the meatloaf incident had even Timo shuddering in memory.

Linke took a big helping of the green salad, just in case.  Mikael gave them all a strange look when everyone hesitated and let him take the first spoonful of the risotto.  After his eyes closed in near ecstasy though there was almost a fight over the serving spoon; Franky just sat back and laughed until everyone else had gotten their platefuls and Mikael’s initial assessment was echoed.  When David and Timo fought with their forks over the last soy scallop Franky settled the fight by spearing the bite and eating it himself while Jan laughed and gathered used dishes.

Mikael shooed Franky out when the singer tried to help wash up.  Linke agreed with the idea if you cook you don’t clean up; even if it meant he pulled more clean up duty than usual.  Mikael tended to take wash up duty if one of them didn’t beat him to it, and if Mikael was in the kitchen Linke tended to want to be with him even if it did mean he got covered in soap bubbles.  Getting covered in water was a small price to pay for a bit of time with a flirty and affectionate Mikael.

There was a dishwasher in the kitchen but Mikael still tended to do the initial clean up in the sink.  Linke thought it was a holdover from when the dishwasher didn’t work, he had gotten the smaller man to actually use the dishwasher to steam sanitize everything just for the sake of paranoia. Linke had just dried his hands when Mikael took him by surprise and backed him into the refrigerator for a kiss.

Linke had just tucked his hands into Mikael’s back pockets and started thinking about finding a way to take this upstairs finally when Timo’s whoop of delight broke them apart.

“Should I be worried,” Mikael asked when Linke groaned.

“Maybe,” Linke answered as Mikael stepped away. “It depends on what he’s decided to inflict on us for entertainment tonight.”  They had been taking turns choosing non musical forms of amusement for the evenings given that they were spending most of the days working on the new album even if it wasn’t recording precisely, when the snow finally stopped they’d have a ton of work to catch up on.  They were enjoying the break while they could, even if they all were getting twitchy with wanting to work.

~0~

Timo’s choice had been poker.  More specifically it had been _strip_ poker a game none of them were terribly good at.  Linke managed alright, he still had his shirts and cargoes on after the last hand was laid down.  Mikael swore softly as he threw down his two and three of spades and reached for the back of his shirt.  Jan and Juri had shared a resigned look and stood to strip off their jeans.  David was completely out and was lying belly down beside Timo who still had his undershirt and jeans on.  Franky had wound up with a truly killer string of bad hands and had been naked fairly fast and after watching three more hands had said he was going to shower and crash.

Linke had expected Mikael to be thin, so that wasn’t a surprise. The ragged scar trailing down his left side from the nipple down was though, but it was the heavy white patch on his elbow caught Timo’s eye.

“What fuck did you do to get that?” Timo leaned forward to get a better look.

Mikael gave them a sheepish smile.  “The elbow? I wiped out on my bike when I was eight.  I have a matching mark on my knee.”  Timo sat back with a low whistle and to Linke’s mixed relief and curiosity didn’t press on to ask about the finer but bigger tracery down Mikael’s side.

Three more hands and Timo was out and Linke and Mikael were both down to their boxers.  Jan had been carried upstairs two hands before by Juri after the little DJ had started teasing the tall drummer by playing with himself.  And Linke expected David was about to start being truly merciless in stringing Timo out if the little grin he had was anything to go by.  Timo had been distracted the last hand he’d played by David wriggling just enough to show off the dimples in his butt.

Linke had been disappointed when he’d won the hand that had cost Mikael his jeans and all he’d gotten was a wry grin and Mikael turning his back to slide his jeans playfully down.  Whatever had caused the mark on his side had continued down almost to Mikael’s knee, which as he’d ruefully admitted did have a palm sized white scar under it.  Linke had been hoping for no underwear but had been sorely disappointed when the plain blue boxers had come into view.

David had just laughed at the pout he’d worn when Mikael sat back down and picked up the cards to shuffle and deal.  The little wriggle David had sent Timo’s way had only made Linke laugh himself at the looks of fixed attention Timo gave David’s ass.  Linke wondered if Mikael had dimples on his butt like David did.

Having a queen come up didn’t help him at all, the matching king made him throw down his cards and swear.  Mikael grinned impishly at him and turned over his two cards.

Two queens.  Linke swore savagely to the great amusement of Timo and David and the quieter enjoyment of Mikael.  He stood and locking his eyes with Mikael’s green ones slowly peeled his boxers down past his knees, from there he kicked them off and quirked an eyebrow in invitation.

Mikael licked his lower lip and just let his eyes move down.  Linke knew Mikael was looking at his half hard cock by the way his breath caught and the flush that rose on his cheeks right before Mikael dropped his gaze and quickly started gathering up the scattered cards.

Linke was only peripherally aware of David luring Timo out of the room as he went to his knees and began a slow hands and knees stalk.  Mikael was so busy trying to not look and stare that he didn’t realize he was in trouble until Linke had him pinned against the couch.

He didn’t savor the breathless little gasp he got when Mikael realized he was caught, Linke just leaned down and nipped at Mikael’s lower lip, asking for and getting a kiss.  Then Linke nudged Mikael up onto the couch and after tugging Mikael’s underwear down pressed the smaller man into the soft upholstery.

Mikael’s soft cry as Linke’s hips ground down was all the incentive he needed to slide one thigh between Mikael’s and lean just so.  With another soft gasp Mikael spread his legs a little and let Linke wind one long arm around his waist and lift.  For a brief moment Linke thought he’d pushed to far but then Mikael’s right hand was fisting in his hair and his left was on Linke’s hip pulling down as Mikael rocked up.  Linke groaned when he felt a wiggle and then felt Mikael’s leg wind up and over the back of his, tangling them tightly together.

Linke caught every whimper and gasp he could with his mouth, reveling in how Mikael was struggling to slow down even when his body clearly wanted everything _now_.  Going slow was driving him a bit mad as well and eventually even his patience reached its limits and Linke groped for their cocks and started fisting them harder.  Hearing Mikael gasping his name in those hot breathless tones, hearing him begging for Linke to not stop, and the feel of frantic grasping hands pulling on his hair and fisting on his skin; far too quickly Linke felt the shudders that meant he was going to come.  With a growl he clung to his control and nipped at Mikael’s throat.

Clearly Mikael had been fighting not to come as well and the teeth on his throat was just too much, the little gasp Mikael let out as his back arched and he writhed out his orgasm into Linke’s weight was the final tiny spark Linke needed to go free falling over the abyss himself.

Shaking out the aftershocks was much nicer laying on a couch Linke mused as he hummed into Mikael’s throat.  Not only was he free of the need to force his trembling legs to keep him standing he was in a much better position to get petted.  Linke let out another contented humm at the feel of Mikael’s fingers stroking up through the hairs at the nape of his neck.

“This is nice,” mused Mikael softly as he wound a bit of Linke’s hair around one finger.

“mmm,” grunted Linke in agreement as he shifted his sticky left hand up and under Mikael’s shoulder do he could get a bit more comfortable.  He knew they needed to get up and wash off before they crawled into bed, but right now Linke was quietly content to stay right where he was.  And from the soft murmurs of pleasure he was still getting out of Mikael Linke didn’t think Mikael would object to cuddling a few more minutes.

Linke nuzzled a bit closer and closed his eyes, just for a few moments he promised himself, to enjoy being cuddled.

When Juri came downstairs an hour later after a bottle of water he found them both still tangled together, Linke with his nose buried in Mikael’s hair and Mikael with his face nestled into the hollow of Linke’s throat, both completely asleep.  Juri tried in vain to stifle the smug little smile that crept over his features as he dug out one of the spare blankets from the cupboard beside the fireplace and gently tucked it around the pair curled around each other on the couch.

Linke had performed this same service to him and Jan numerous times, so Juri resolved not to tease Linke.  Well, not too much anyway.

~0~

After another three days snowed in Linke was heartily fed up with being shut up inside.  Books and computer games had rather lost their appeal and rounds of cards and pool were quickly getting old.  Music was only keeping them distracted for about half the day before they all started to get twitchy, though they had learned that Mikael could play an interesting third counterpoint on guitar for one of their new songs.

But if he got one more smart remark about christening the couch he was going to smother Timo with a pillow.

If their night on the couch had led to more Linke might have been able to keep his sense of humor, but under the weight of Timo and Jan’s rambunctious teasing and Juri and David’s amused looks Mikael had gone as bashful as Franky sometimes did.  Kisses and touches in stray corners just weren’t enough now that Linke had gotten to feel Mikael under him.  He was addicted already and wanted to be left alone to try and get the physical side of their odd little relationship back on track.

A complaint by Franky about the state of his laundry had made them all aware that someone else had been doing their wash while they were busy recording and that none of the band knew where the laundry room was.  That provoked a blush from Mikael and a bought of ribbing by Timo about being all domestic, not that Timo _ever_ really complained about not having to do his own wash.  But it had highlighted the fact that there was still more of this odd old house that they hadn’t seen.

Like the door to the downstairs pantry, game room and studio the door down to the laundry was hidden behind a wall panel, this one just off the little breakfast area by the kitchen.  Franky had asked what the chutes were and gotten laughed at by Juri.  Jan had explained around his giggles that they were probably connected to each bathroom, to drop dirty laundry down so you didn’t have to carry it.  There was another stairway up that after David got curious proved to lead up into the back of what Linke had thought was a small closet on the old servant’s side of the house.

The door hidden behind a trinket shelf had gotten the guitarists curiosity aroused and after getting Mikael’s bemused permission David had started to search for other hidden doors and compartments in the walls.  After Jan had found two in the floor of the nursery and Juri had found another in the library they all became absorbed in the game. Even Mikael was curious; he’d only found one of the two hidey holes in the nursery as a child and had used a different cubby than the one Juri found in the library for some of the money he’d gotten from playing on the streets.

It wasn’t like what they found in the new cubbies was anything spectacular.  The nursery cubby held feathers and bits of rock and small twisted bits of brass, the usual childhood ‘treasures’, the one in the library a packet of old letters bound with a faded bit of ribbon, from the dates on them they had probably been written when Mikael’s grandfather and grandmother were courting.

Mikael confessed there was a pass through from his old room to the back of a closet in the servant’s wing that he’d used many times as a child to get out of a grounding punishment and escape to the back gardens.  When he showed it to them only Jan was small enough to easily fit through the low narrow passage, the rest of them were simply too tall or broad to fit comfortably.

David found one hidden door that was locked and that really got them all curious.  Mikael was curious enough about where the hidden door off his parent’s old room went that he went searching for old keys.  So far none of the ones they had tried had opened the old door, but Mikael was fairly confident that sooner or later they’d find the key that fit.

Timo found several other small cubbies, each sitting squarely under one of the beds in the servant’s side of the house and one larger one under the bed of the room Mikael was using now.  Jan was practicing his lock picking skills on the small lock box that they had found there.  The rest of the cubbies had only contained dust and one had held a length of faded purple ribbon.

Franky had given up first and gone to wash up and start cooking again, and while Mikael was curious he soon followed the singer downstairs.  Jan was sitting at the worktable in the library glaring at the key hole of the old lock box and poking at it with bits of wire while Juri poked around the library shelves a bit more.

Linke debated following Mikael downstairs but decided to see if he couldn’t get Jan and Timo to lay off the teasing a bit, at least until he could get Mikael relaxed enough to tease back.

After a deep sigh he went after Timo first.

“Hey Timo?”

Timo grunted at him from where he’d flopped on a bed to watch David crawling around under it, well to watch David’s ass wriggle anyway.

“Can you lay off of Mikael for a bit?”

That got him Timo’s full attention and David’s voice echoing up from under the bed.

“Told you that you were being obnoxious.”

“If he’d quit acting like a skittish virgin,” Timo snarked then stopped as he saw Linke stiffen.  “What? He isn’t is he?”  Timo sat up with a stunned look on his face as David scrambled up to look at them both.

“I,” Linke paused and thought, “Timo, I have no idea.  It never occurred to me until just now.”  Linke sank down into a chair and raked his hands through his hair.  “I mean, he’s our age, he had to have, right?” 

David and Timo exchanged a look then Timo flopped back on the bed with a groan. “God if I hadn’t I’d have gone insane.”  David sat beside him and gave Timo and ungentle poke.

“You had me,” the guitarist reminded.

“Yeah, but still.  He doesn’t act like he never, you know,” Timo’s legendary brashness faltered.  “What?” he protested at the heated glare Linke shot him.  “He doesn’t kiss like a virgin.”

“And you would know this how?” Asked David with arch amusement as Linke’s glare got darker.

“I watch him and Linke suck face,” Timo shot back gesturing inelegantly at their glowering bassist.  “Mik’s got no problems pulling hair and groping down the back of Linke’s jeans.”

Linke relaxed a bit and scoffed softly.  “That just means he’s kissed and made out. That doesn’t, mean he not, you know.”  Linke huffed again. “Fuck.”

“Thank god, if he didn’t I be really worried,” David joked weakly.  “A male who hasn’t screwed around at least a little by age twenty has to be a pod or something. And the word is virgin Linke,” he pointed out to stop the words he could see piling up behind Timo’s eyes, if the rapper got started the whole house would know what they were discussing.

“Thank you David,” Linke sighed.  “I just haven’t made it a habit to go about deflowering young virgins.”

“Saves them from being dragon snacks,” snarked Timo with a grin that was only just this side of lecherous, then he sat up.  “Seriously, how far,” Timo asked, holding up a finger to shush David’s near reflexive protest.

“Mostly what you’ve seen,” confessed Linke flushing a little, which made his friends share another long look.  Linke was only this open when he was really stuck and asking for help.

“You haven’t sucked him off yet?” David sounded surprised.  “After all that teasing about better uses for your mouth the other day?  Chris you’re slipping.”

“We keep cuddling and falling asleep,” he admitted wryly.

“Sounds like we need to lock you two up in a bedroom,” Juri’s voice made all three conspirators jump.  Jan giggled at the looks on his band mates faces.

“Or handcuff you together,” offered the little DJ as he twirled a heavy old ring of keys around his forefinger.  “Juri found the key to the lock box behind one of the roses in the library, and these,” he displayed the heavy looking ring proudly, “were in the box.  But I’m hungry and whatever it is Franky’s cooking smells good.”

Linke sighed and rose. “I don’t think I’m up for any more mysteries tonight,” he confessed ruefully as he headed for the door.

“Other than the ones our bashful host hides in his britches?” teased Jan ignoring Linke’s black scowl with the ease of long practice.  He couldn’t ignore Juri’s hands on his shoulders or the softly whispered promise in his ear though.  Linke just kept walking toward the stairs as Juri made his offer and Timo and David watched in avid curiosity.

Jan just gave Juri a wide and slightly manic grin before nodding enthusiastically.  Timo pouted as he watched the drummer heard the DJ toward the stairs.

David just laughed at him as he wrapped his arms around Timo’s shoulders.  “We could turn in early tonight too,” he offered in a tone that made bits of Timo’s anatomy perk up and take notice.

“Deal, food first, bed racing after.”  David laughed as Timo bounded to his feet and took his hand to almost run for the stairs.

~0~

Linke paused in the door to the kitchen and just watched for a moment as Mikael carefully spooned bits of what looked like dumpling batter into a pot of boiling broth.  Franky was watching and giving bits of encouragement as Mikael dropped the spoonful in and jumped back away from any splashes.  From the smells Franky was teaching Mikael his famous chicken and dumpling soup that he had learned from his grandmother.  A smaller pot of a more orange colored broth also had little batter balls puffing up in it so Linke knew Timo and David were going to have to test another vegetarian adaptation attempt, but both pots smelled really good, so he didn’t think either was in any danger of starvation.

Franky was a pretty good teacher so Linke had no fears of Mikael accidentally poisoning the rest of them.  Behind him Linke heard Jan squeal on the stairs, then a long low moan.  The moan was interrupted by Timo snarking about no fucking on the stairs as other people had to use them too.  The playful argument then degenerated into a heated discussion of if that meant shower sex was off limits as well.

Linke smiled at the flush that rose up the necks of both Mikael and Franky, but couldn’t help but wonder if Mikael had ever had sex in a shower or tub before.  He knew Franky had, but that was because he’d walked in on Franky plowing one of his ex-girlfriends in the oversize tub at a hotel once.  If Franky had been more careful of the water levels and hadn’t overflowed the tub in his enthusiasm Linke would never have gone looking to see where the water was coming from and caught them.

With Franky and Mikael both adorably pink and looking at him like they’d been caught doing something naughty Linke had to firmly stomp on his desire to tease, he just walked in and wrapped his arms around Mikael and playfully nuzzled at the patch of skin exposed by Mikael having his hair tied back.

Linke could feel Mikael’s cock twitching against his thigh as he cuddled the shorter man close and the little catch in Mikael’s breathing made his own catch a bit as well.  He was just starting to explore that little patch of skin when Franky let out a plaintive wail.

“**_Christian_**, not in the _kitchen_.”

Linke couldn’t stop the tease; it was out before he could censor it. “You could always join in.”  Mikael let out a little squeak that Franky’s indignant squawk covered.

“**Chris**!”  The splutter of denials that followed had Linke laughing into Mikael’s shoulder.  Franky was so much fun to get worked up.  If Franky had been anything other than straight he’d have been fun to play with, but unfortunately none of the guys tripped the singers triggers and group playtime tended to leave him watching from the sidelines.

The rest of the band piling in for dinner sidetracked any further musing on Franky’s orientation or Mikael’s exact sexual status.

Linke would work on figuring that out later.

~0~

Mikael rested his hands on the keys of the piano and hesitated before letting his fingers pick out a melody almost on their own.  Jan and Juri had cleaned up after dinner and all but run back upstairs, Mikael was sure he really didn’t want to know why.  David and Timo had been whispering together for several minutes before the guitarist had caught the rappers wrist and tugged him up the stairs as well.  Franky had been chatting with some girl he knew via a web cam and Mikael had quickly left the room when he saw the girl playfully unbuttoning her blouse.  That was another thing Mikael decided he didn’t really want to know about.  He liked Frank well enough but he really didn’t want to know anything sexual about the singer.  Mikael felt his dreams were explicit enough with only Chris featuring in them, adding in more band members was sure to get him in trouble.

Chris had finally been able to immerse himself in a book and Mikael had left him to it over an hour ago.  If he hadn’t left Mikael was sure he’d have started touching, and the twin dimples at the base of Chris’s spine were a terrible temptation.  Mikael already knew that watching Chris was going to get him in trouble, just watching the play of light over smooth skin and muscle had gotten him razzed by Chris’s band mates.  It made Mikael feel clumsy, he’d only had a very few male friends growing up and of them only Richard had been a close friend.  Surrounded by males who had been friends for years left him feeling like he was missing critical bits of male vocabulary, there were in jokes and shared smiles that left him feeling lost and more than a little wistful.

Mikael’s hands stopped playing and he pulled the cover over the piano keys.  He was all twisted up, he wanted Chris, wanted him so bad it hurt sometimes but every time he got up the guts to just go for it Jan or Timo or one of the other guys was right there and interrupted.  And he wasn’t bold enough to keep going when he knew people were watching him.

It just made him feel more inexperienced and confused.  And he **_hated_** feeling like a clueless virgin, he might not be a playboy but damn-it he wasn’t _that_ clueless.  Mikael sighed and raked a hand through his hair, pulling the tie out and shooting it across the room in frustration.

He rose and after a quick peek into the living room that told him, yes, Franky and his ‘friend’ were still ‘talking’ and that he _really_ didn’t want to go in there Mikael headed upstairs.  The doors to the rooms Jan and Juri and Timo and David were sharing were closed and other than a bit of heated whimpering from behind Timo and David’s door things were silent.

Mikael wondered if a hot bath would help, he hadn’t tried out the big bath yet even though he knew Jan and Juri had and both come out with smug grins afterwards.  He knew that Ida, the evil woman that she was, had stocked the bathrooms with all sorts of girly things; Mikael also knew she’d stocked the drawers of the bedside tables.  And after what he’d found in his he’d been afraid to go looking in the guest rooms.  Mikael knew what the condoms were for, he was a very well trained child of the nineties, and the lube was alright for when he was playing alone but the toys had him slamming the drawer closed and blushing.

Mikael really didn’t want to know what she had been thinking when she’d put a vibrator and two dildos in his bedside drawer, he’d only just gotten to the point when he could use one without blushing like mad.

With a soft sigh Mikael closed the door to his room and started striping down, Chris was probably still curled up in the window seat of the library so he was safe enough to play a little himself.  He gathered up the supplies he wanted to try out and headed for the bathroom.  A faint hint of chlorine hit his nose as he pulled the cover back from the tub and hit the button to get it heating the rest of the way up and circulating fully.  Mikael poked around in the bottles and jars that Ida had left, each labeled as safe for use in the hot tub and pondered.  A few he opened a sniffed, some he put back almost immediately as being to flowery but one he lingered over, the faint musky scent reminding him of Chris.  After a long moment he dumped a palm full of the glittering blue crystals into the water and watched as the system swirled the darker blue stain into a clear pale blue.  By the morning the filters would have pulled every scrap of color and scent out of the water.

Mikael rinsed his hands and decided the water was warm enough and after moving a couple towels down he shut the door leading to his room and climbed in.  He forgot completely about the door to the hallway.

After scrubbing a bit Mikael leaned back and relaxed.  A bit of poking of buttons and he found a setting that blew little jets of water from the seats and rather by accident he found sitting just so on them drove a jet of water right up his backside in a way that made his knees weak and his cock achingly hard.

Mikael never thought that the little moan he let out would attract attention; he was more focused on touching himself.  Mikael whimpered as he dragged a hand over his nipples, He knew Chris’s mouth was devastating touching there, sharp teeth and agile tongue biting just hard enough to hurt and rubbing until Mikael wanted to beg.  Pinching wasn’t the same now but would have to do as he reached for the smaller silicone toy and fumbled it down between his legs.  The water had relaxed him enough that it only burned a little going in.

He’d finally gotten the angle and was whimpering Chris’s name when he felt a hand wrapping around the back of his neck.  With a squeak Mikael’s eyes snapped open to see Christian’s mere millimeters away.

“Don’t stop,” Chris ordered as he slid into the water as well.

“Chris, but,” his breathless protest was silenced by Chris’s mouth covering his and an insistent tongue demanding entry.  Mikael capitulated, and with a small whimper kissed back, his right hand groping for Chris’s shoulder.  The feel of Chris’s knee pushing up between his legs and jarring the toy made him moan helplessly.  Mikael reached for Chris and tried to pull the taller man closer, but Chris just growled and started kissing his way down Mikael’s throat as his left hand crept down to grasp the toy and give it a firm twist.

The stars that burst behind Mikael’s eyes had him clutching at Chris’s shoulder and crying out.  A few more precise twists and Mikael would have agreed to anything as long as Chris didn’t stop, his hands were clumsy as Mikael reached for anything he could touch but when he reached for the erection he could feel rubbing his hip Chris stopped him.

“Unuh, you’ve been tormenting me all week, my turn.”  With that Chris reached for his t-shirt and after ripping the worn material in half he securely tied Mikael’s right wrist to one of the grab bars above the tub.  When Mikael groped for Chris’s shoulder for balance Chris growled again and tied his other hand as well.  Mikael twisted so he could breathe and found himself on his knees with Chris behind him.

All he could do was kneel there and tremble as Chris methodically found each and every weak point his body had.  Begging didn’t make the bassist change his leisurely pace at all; it just earned him firm jabs from the toy and dark chuckles that made him harder.  He needed to come but Chris’s hand kept tugging his balls down as the other stroked slowly down Mikael’s spine.  Just enough respite that Mikael would slide back from that edge but not enough to let him breathe easy; just enough that Mikael wasn’t quite sure what he was begging for, just that he didn’t want Chris to stop touching him.

Then Chris did stop and Mikael cried out a needy wordless protest as Chris climbed out of the bath.  He was alone just long enough to start to shake from the chill of the perceived rejection when Chris climbed back in and this time plastered his own long frame up against Mikael’s back.

“You have no idea how hot you look tied up and helpless,” Chris breathed right in his ear as clever bassists hands wandered down to torment Mikael’s nipples.  “Your ass speared with that toy, all slick and ready.”

Mikael whimpered; he could feel the heat of Chris’s cock lined up against the crack of his ass, and wanted the toy out and something warmer put in.  Every time he squirmed backwards Chris would shift so it didn’t even make the toy move.  All he could do was pant and wait and fist his tied hands in the torn remains of the shirt binding them.

Then Chris backed off and when Mikael’s tried to turn to see what was happening he felt hands on his hips.  Mikael didn’t realize he was being flipped until he felt the edge of the tub under his shoulders and the strain in his arms from being tied.  Then he was distracted by Chris lifting him up a little and the feel of hot breath over wet skin and he forgot all about his arms.

“Chris!” Mikael gasped out only to get another warm dark chuckle.

“Humm?” was all Chris said as he nipped a path down Mikael’s left hip, bypassing Mikael’s aching erection.

“Please,” Mikael begged, his eyes begged as well when Chris’s slate gray stare locked with his.

“Please what, Mikael,” Chris asked playfully as he breathed over Mikael’s twitching cock.  “Please stop?”

“No,” Mikael moaned, “don’t stop, please. Please, want to touch.”  The little smirk Chris gave him only made Mikael more convinced that this Christian was going to torture him until he couldn’t see from need.

~0~

“Hmm?” Linke mused as he traced a path with his tongue up the inside of Mikael’s thigh, stopping on the soft skin behind his balls and making Mikael squirm trying to get the tongue to move.  Mikael couldn’t seem to decide if he wanted his cock or his ass played with more and just writhed in place, pleading.

He’d heard Mikael moan and stopped, hearing him moan again and it be his name had Linke pushing the door open to see.  But seeing Mikael push that slim green toy right up his ass still moaning had been all Linke’s control could take.  He’d locked the door, gotten naked and in the tub so hard he thought he’d pop at the slightest touch.

The impulse to tie Mikael up had been irresistible, and the shirt he’d been wearing was already under threat to be turned into a cleaning rag, and seeing Mikael tied and helpless was more than worth the small sacrifice.  Linke considered his next move as he circled his tongue in place just to hear Mikael moan and beg.  The desperate breathless hitch when he traced his tongue around the stretched flesh wrapped around the toy made his cock throb.

Linke fumbled with the condom he’d grabbed when he’d realized there weren’t any in easy reach and after tearing the packet with his teeth he clumsily rolled it on one handed.  Then Linke mercilessly yanked the toy out and pushed Mikael’s hips down so he could plunge in.  Linke had to stop and shake for a long moment to let Mikael adjust and to keep from coming on the spot.  Mikael breathlessly begging really wasn’t helping his control, so Linke tried stroking one hand over Mikael’s leaking erection, swirling scented water around the sensitized flesh.

That proved to be a mistake, as the first down stroke tugged at Mikael’s foreskin he was writhing clamping down tight and coming hard.  All Linke could do was hang on, but the delicious contractions blew his control all to hell and after two hard thrusts Linke was coming hard, and swearing.

Clumsily Linke fumbled the wet bits of t-shirt binding Mikael’s wrists until the other man’s arms were freed and wound weakly around his neck.  That was not how he’d expected things to end.  Linke grumbled a bit as he cuddled Mikael in his lap, until Mikael let out a breathless laugh.

“If it helps, I’m not complaining.”  Linke knew he was scowling, he hadn’t blown that fast since his first time, and it wasn’t funny damn-it.

All his grumbles got him was a shyly squirming lap full of wet Mikael.  The hesitant little kiss was nice though, and it didn’t stay hesitant for long.  Linke growled when Mikael moved down to nip at the ink on his neck and one hand started thumbing over his nipple rings.

“We might want to get out,” offered Mikael softly.

“Mmm? Why?  The water’s still nice and warm.” Linke wasn’t going to let go of his grumbles quite that easily.

“Yeah,” Mikael’s nose bumped his and Linke accepted another languid kiss. “But if you make me come like that again we might drown.”

Linke considered that for a long moment.  Mikael had a point, so reluctantly he helped Mikael to stand on trembling knees and got them both out of the tub.  Linke peeled the condom off and pitched it into the small bin as Mikael started drying off.  When he came up to help Mikael dutifully helped dry his back, but they were both more interested in touching than in truly drying off.  When they tumbled into bed they both were still rather damp around the edges.

But Linke didn’t care; he was getting hard again and was teasing Mikael back to full hardness with his mouth.  When Mikael’s soft little cries broke into hot moans Linke closed his eyes.  The feel of those panting little breaths on his thigh was making him crazy and Mikael just wouldn’t hold still.

Then Linke was moaning and groping a hand down to tangle in Mikael’s hair as he found out why.  In all his sex fantasies Mikael sixty-nine-ing with him had never come up.  And while Mikael clearly wasn’t practiced at the art of sucking cock he was enthusiastic enough that Linke did not care.

He pulled off Mikael’s cock with a cry at the faintest hint of teeth on his own but kept his hand fisted tight.  Linke knew he was pulling hair but the little moans he was getting made it hard to care.  With a snarl he dragged Mikael off his cock and pounced on the other man, the little disappointed cry made Linke’s blood boil with want.

“Lube, condom, want to fuck you so hard you scream,” warned Linke.  Mikael scrambled for the bedside table and very shortly after the required supplies were to hand.  Again Linke applied the condom one handed as he firmly shoved Mikael to the bedding chest first.  He knew he was being rough when Linke slid two lubed fingers all the way in, but the way Mikael squirmed back into Linke’s hand made him think that a little rough was okay.

Only the fact that Linke remembered how tight Mikael had been in the tub allowed him the control to add another finger and then a fourth before he lined up and slammed in.

Mikael was still tight, tight and pushing back as hard as he could and making hot needy little whimpers.  Linke groaned, Mikael was begging and squirming like he needed something harder and deeper.  He wrapped an arm around Mikael’s chest and pulled until Mikael’s back was tight to his chest and when that didn’t quite get what he wanted Linke started nudging Mikael to knee walk toward the wall.  There he got the angle he needed and was able to wrap his slick hand over Mikael’s cock and stroke hard over the weeping flesh.

Linke felt Mikael’s thighs twitch like he was trying to close his legs, with a feral little snarl Linke kneed Mikael’s knees wider apart and when that got him a breathy cry and an arched back he did it again until Mikael needed Linke’s cock up his ass to stay balanced against the wall.  Every little nudge had made Mikael tighten up and squirm back harder.  Linke stopped stroking Mikael’s cock and reached down to tug at his balls.  When he did that Mikael turned into a writhing begging ball of want, completely unable to free a hand to touch, needing Linke to make him come.

Linke closed his eyes and savored the tightness around his cock, the frantic cries of his lover and the slowly coiling burn in his balls.  Then in a fit of mischief he pulled completely out and after giving Mikael barely enough time to cry out in protest threw the other man flat on his back and slammed into him again.  He had time for only a few hard thrusts before Mikael was clutching his shoulders hard enough to bruise and screaming his name as he came.  Linke groaned and thrust a few more times before coming himself and collapsing over Mikael’s heaving chest.

The sweat hadn’t even cooled before they were both soundly asleep tangled in each other’s arms.

~0~

David frowned a bit as he watched Mikael fidget in his seat for the thousandth time that morning.  Linke had come out of Mikael’s room this morning, which was interesting in and of itself; but the fact he was shirtless and had some very telling scratches, bruises and bite marks had the rest of the band wondering just what _had_ happened last night.  David knew Mikael had screamed Linke’s name at least once, but other than that one outburst they hadn’t heard anything through two sets of closed doors.  And David had not been about to let Timo out of bed to go press his ear to Mikael’s door.  He was curious, but there was a line.

Linke was being subtly solicitous of Mikael and that was rather telling, David knew from a few rare past encounters with Linke that the tall bassist was a rather lively lover and that if you got him well and truly wound up you would be a bit tender for the next few days.  David smiled fondly at the memory of a mildly buzzed Linke making a drunken Timo put up or shut up and how delicately Timo had had to move for the show the next day.  Somehow David didn’t think things had changed much since they were seventeen.

Jan was watching Linke fuss in his own peculiar way over Mikael and David was waiting for the questions behind Jan’s eyes to overflow into words.  Juri was quietly amused, but if that was for Mikael’s little fidgets or for Jan’s wriggling curiosity David wasn’t sure. 

The little hiss out of Mikael when he went to rinse his breakfast dishes made Franky catch Mikael’s elbow and whisper urgently in his ear for a moment.  Franky might act oblivious, might even _be_ oblivious a lot of the time, but on some things he was terrifyingly observant.  And David was painfully aware that the health of his friends was one of those things where you really couldn’t hide from Franky.  Any changes in eating habits had Franky pulling out _the eyes_ on you, weight loss also got you a fussy singer in your face and any indication of pain… well David had learned if he hurt himself to just fess up and be done with it.  The last time he and Timo had over done the sex play and rubbed David’s backside raw Franky had been in full scale mother hen mode wanting to know if David was okay.  Bad enough that David couldn’t sit on anything without the memory being achingly clear, he’d had to confess to being fucked raw to their painfully straight band mate.

It looked like Mikael either had figured that out or just wasn’t the sort who could dissemble to save his life, because after flushing red he murmured something back that had Frank blushing to his ears.  The glare he shot Linke was a sight though and since Linke had been watching Mikael he missed the first warning shot completely.

David ducked his head over his toast and tried not to snicker when Franky stalked over to Linke and hauled him out of the kitchen by his elbow.  The strangled giggle out of Timo made it that much harder to not laugh outright at Franky’s not so quietly hissed remarks about lube and prep and damn-it _even he knew better_ so there was no excuse for Linke being so rough.  Juri slapped a hand over Jan’s mouth before the DJ could start spluttering and tried to keep his laughter to strangled snorts.

Mikael was clearly mortified from the dark red stain over his cheekbones and the small tremors in his hands as he tried to cover his embarrassment by washing up.  When Linke escaped Franky’s scolding the bassist tucked an arm around Mikael and whispered softly to him.

All David heard of Mikael’s response was a plaintive remark that he wasn’t made of glass, and** that** set Timo to laughing so hard he fell out of his chair which set off the stifled snickers of everyone else.

Mikael just looked confused as Linke shot them all a blanket death glare.  Franky just huffed and glared right back.

“You, get Mikael into a hot bath,” Linke just smirked as Mikael coughed and blushed a deeper shade of red, which made David wonder just what they had gotten up to last night. Franky just growled, “Christian. You got Mikael into this mess; you get to pamper him out of it.”  When Mikael went to open his mouth to protest Franky gave him one of the **_looks_** that none of the band ever argued with.

Linke put a hand over Mikael’s mouth and collected a dark look and a nip for his pains.  With a pained sigh he just tugged Mikael toward the stairs.  As they walked upstairs Franky shouted a final bit of instruction.

“And no fucking around in the bath!”

David just put his head down by his plate and laughed until he cried.

~0~

Linke sighed softly, he could have done without Franky meddling and the guys dying with laughter over their breakfast but he had to admit it was kind of nice to not have to do anything but lie around and cuddle.  Paul had called each of them to make sure they really were okay as the weather reports were still rather grim.  The road crews had been pulled in as yet another record breaking snow storm roared toward Berlin.

Mikael had fielded a call from his advocate and calls from both of her assistants, which had been more embarrassing and amusing for Linke than he’d thought would be possible.  André had checked in and managed to make Linke blush by asking why on earth Franky was calling her about his bedroom habits.  Linke had forgotten that Franky even had André’s number, and sic-ing his sister on him was just dirty pool, Linke hadn’t meant to be so rough.  He still couldn’t wait for when they could try again.

The hand idly stroking his stomach paused, but Linke didn’t open his eyes to see what had distracted Mikael.

Then his eyes flew open and Linke was arching up with a gasp as Mikael’s fingers gently traced over the line his cock made in his cargoes.

“’m awake, oh god am I awake,” Linke gasped again as the heel of Mikael’s hand rubbed firmly down, making his cock jump in interest.  After what felt like hours of gentle exploratory touches, but really had probably only been a few minutes, Linke growled and rolled to pin Mikael flat to the bed.

“You are a tease,” warned Linke as he nuzzled into Mikael’s neck.  Mikael had a delightfully diverse set of erogenous zones, from the spots just behind his ears to the spot on his collar bone on down to the already tight nipples and the crease of his thigh and that little spot to the left of his tail bone.  Linke loved playing with them and he was stocking up now for when he couldn’t even _look_ later without obnoxious reporters looking on and potentially commenting.

“’m not,” protested Mikael as he stroked his fingers up the fine hair are the nape of Linke’s neck to fist firmly in Linke’s hair.  Linke groaned; Mikael had figured out fast that he liked just a little hair pulling.  The teeth nipping at his ink made him groan again, maybe he shouldn’t have highlighted that area, but it felt so good to have it lapped at and nibbled.  Linke let Mikael roll them back over and arched up a bit as clever fingers wormed their way up under his shirts, almost tickling his ribs as they worked their way up to toy with the bits of silvered steel in his nipples.

“If I fuck you again and Franky hears he’ll dump a bucket of snow over us,” Linke warned.  Franky had been very straightforward on that count.  He remembered the last time he, David and Timo had gotten bored and stupid and the week of funny looks that David and Timo had collected for walking a bit delicately.  The rumors after that incident had been pure hell for the singer and his acting skills had gotten him the reputation for being a sweetly oblivious **_boy_**.  They might all be clueless males but none of them were _that_ dense.  Franky was just better at ignoring things than the rest of them, even if it did sometimes bite him on the butt.

Mikael didn’t stop working Linke shirts up at the warning.

“Franky would douse us,” Linke warned, not that he really wanted to stop.

“So don’t fuck me.”  Mikael shoved the shirts a bit higher and nipped at one silver ring.

“Good point,” Linke peeled both his shirts off and let Mikael have his way.

It really had been far too long since Linke had had the time to let a lover just pet and explore like this.  The soft groans fell freely from his lips as Mikael teased Linke’s nipples with his mouth, learning what Linke liked and what was just a little too much.  Then he moved on, finding the ticklish spots on his sides and then that Linke’s navel was terribly sensitive and playing there making Linke gasp and squirm.

A delicate tracery of teeth on the hollow inside his hip bone and above the waistband of his trousers made Linke gasp and fist a hand in Mikael’s hair.  He’d forgotten that patch of skin was so sensitized.  A long ago girlfriend had made him come just by touching him there just right.  Linke was whimpering when Mikael shifted again and popped the button on his cargoes to start peeling them off.

Linke stopped Mikael just long enough to strip off his trousers and underwear, when he laid back down he was gratified to see Mikael’s breathing was a bit unsteady and his hands were shaking.  He moaned though when Mikael started at his throat again, but the fingers tracing little patterns on the skin inside of his thigh made up for a lot.  This time Mikael didn’t play as long as he moved down only swiping his tongue once at the spot on Linke’s hip before moving down to the crease of his thigh and then around to taste the skin of the pulse point inside his thigh.

With a groan Linke spread his legs so Mikael had plenty of room to explore, sampling first the skin of his right thigh then moving across to the left one huffing warm puffs of air tortuously close to Linke’s aching cock. The feel of a pointed tongue tracing up the ridge between his legs and rolling just under his balls made Linke cry out and arch up, one hand fisting into Mikael’s hair making him groan and the other tangling tight into the bedding.

Another moan and Linke was shaking as Mikael sucked one testicle then the other into warm wet heat and nudged with his tongue.  Linke knew Mikael had no idea of what he was doing, and was just exploring but it was making him crazy.

Gentle fingers stoking up his cock made Linke moan again, the feel of warm wet tongue licking up the underside of that aching organ made his breathing hitch.  Linke looked down just in time to see Mikael look up at him and tentatively lap at the slit.  Linke watched as Mikael considered the taste then lapped again, working the very tip of his tongue down the slit in a way that made his cock twitch and bounce off Mikael’s nose.

He had to smile at the offended look Mikael gave his dick but that smile dissolved into a needy cry when Mikael wrapped his mouth around the head and with his tongue probing again sucked gently.  Linke whimpered, Mikael was gently holding his cock, just barely stroking up and down on the shaft as he suckled the head.  It was torturous, he ached with wanting to come, wondering if Mikael would swallow made Linke whimper again.  He was straining trying not to thrust up, shaking with wanting to come and Mikael was just teasing.

Then Mikael shifted and his left hand caught hold of Linke’s hip, his thumb hitting that spot and rubbing firm circles as he tried swallowing more of Linke cock.

Linke couldn’t help it; he couldn’t even choke out a warning as his hips slammed upward pumping frantically as he writhed out his orgasm.  Mikael let out a little squeak and somehow managed not to choke as Linke’s cock tried to slide all the way down his throat; the feel of those muscles swallowing made Linke scream before he could stop it.  The shivery sparks of teeth raking just a little as Mikael pulled off made Linke cry out again.  Seeing Mikael wiping at a bit of come that had escaped made Linke’s belly tighten up and twist.

Mikael found himself flat on his back with Linke pinning him down, devouring his mouth, hands roughly pulling his loose sweatpants down and shoving his shirt up desperate for skin.  When Linke had lapped up every drop of escaped seed he groped for the tube of lube still on the bedside table and slicked up two fingers.

Then he settled back between Mikael’s parted thighs and making sure to keep his eyes locked with Mikael’s dazed stare licked up Mikael’s cock and swallowed him all the way down.

The feel of Mikael’s hands fisting in his hair made him smile as his fingers circled the tender hole he had abused last night.  Even sore Mikael whimpered and begged, squirming in ways that made Linke’s blood pound in his ears.

He wasn’t going to fuck Mikael, Linke promised himself, he was just going to give the other man a lesson in fingering.  One finger slid partway in, twisted a bit then slid back out.  Mikael panted and couldn’t seem to make up his mind if he wanted to thrust up into Linke’s hot teasing mouth or down onto clever slick fingers.  The desperate squirming gyrations and needy pleading cries were making Linke hard again, the finger slid back inside and Linke began curling it, probing for that one spot.

~0~

Mikael had closed his eyes and was trying desperately to not turn into a begging needy mess again.  But when that probing finger slid out all he could do way cry out in loss, when it slid back in again he was whimpering and begging for more.  Chris tortured him a bit more, pulling out then sliding that finger back in, out then in out then two fingers were in and twisting in ways that he remembered from last night.  He whimpered, things ached, but it felt so good all he could do was thrash helplessly as Chris mercilessly teased him with two fingers and his mouth.

Begging didn’t help, it just made Linke chuckle and the vibrations made his balls ache, and Chris’s thumb kept pulling the skin there tight so his balls couldn’t tighten up quite enough for release.  All he could do was fist his hands in Chris’s hair and beg for him to please, **_please_** let him come.  He sounded like a girl but didn’t care.

Then those cruel fingers started rolling in tight hard circles at a spot deep inside and Mikael was letting out a strangled scream. The next thing that was clear in his mind was kisses.  Mikael shuddered and moaned as he realized that salty bitter taste was _him_ in Chris’s mouth and he couldn’t get enough.

Then Chris let out a shriek and was spinning around to glare furiously at the door.

Franky was standing there, just inside the door with a murderous look and a handful of fluffy snow, beside him was a bucket full of the stuff, melting from the warmth of the house.  A bit of melting snow slid down Chris’s back and plopped to the bedding behind his butt.

“Do I need to improvise a chastity belt,” threatened the singer as he packed the bit of snow in his hands into a small snowball.

“No,” growled Chris as he scowled darkly at Franky, “You have no sense of timing.”

“I did warn you,” Franky remarked wryly, “and I think my timing is pretty good.  Now behave or I’ll get David after you too.”  Franky pitched the small snowball at Chris and smirked when it landed in the bassist’s crotch and made Chris shriek and all but levitate out of the bed.

Mikael just curled up in a ball and wondered if it was possible to die of embarrassment as Franky picked up the bucket of melting snow and left.

A few moments later and Mikael felt Chris crawl back o the bed and mop up the melting snow with a towel.  He heard the sound of the towel being tossed back toward the bathroom and a moment after that he felt Chris’s warm body cuddling up behind him and the soft feel of a kiss being brushed over his shoulder.

“You okay?”

Mikael managed a shaky laugh.  “Other than dying of embarrassment?  Yeah, I think so.”  Mikael squirmed his shoulders back a bit until he was securely nestled into Chris’s chest. “I didn’t think he’d actually do that.”

Chris let out a soft bark of wry amusement.  “I knew he would, I just didn’t expect for him to work that fast.  I figured as long as it was me screaming we were okay.”

“But I screamed,” Mikael protested, feeling his cheeks heat up, if he’d just been able to stay quieter.

“Mmm,” agreed Chris absently as he wound an arm a bit more securely around Mikael’s ribs. “I like hearing you scream.”  Mikael pondered that for a long moment before he realized that Chris had fallen asleep spooned up tightly behind him.

He just lay there curled in Chris’s arms as he wondered exactly what Chris had meant, and what if anything it meant for after they were able to get out and the band could pick up their life and work.

When Franky came back up to check on his he found them both soundly asleep again and just covered them with the duvet after sighing and shaking his head.  Juri and Jan were keeping a bucket of snow for him just outside the door in case Linke got overly frisky again.

Knowing Linke he’d need it again.

~0~

Juri watched as Mikael idly played the piano, he’d figured out fairly fast that if something was bothering him Mikael would retreat to the music room and play.  David did something similar if he had a knotty problem bothering him, so at first Juri had dealt with things the same way he did with David, by just observing and if things got to bad sending in someone to drag him out.

But sending Linke in didn’t seem to be fixing whatever the underlying problem was like sending Timo in after David did.  Franky had been watching and when Franky got observant and pushy Juri got wary.  An observant in your face Frank was as bad as a collection of six Jewish grandmothers for worry wart-ing.  Not something Juri liked coping with for any length of time.

They’d had another four days of being essentially shut in before the storms had finally stopped dumping record amounts of snow on the city, Juri snorted.  There were a couple ski resorts that would have killed to gotten that much soft powder snow dumped on them and it had gotten wasted over the city.  But now, _finally_, they were back to their old routine.  Recording was going fairly well, the caterers of ‘ham and turkey are vegetarian’ had been replaced with a company who had a clue so David and Timo weren’t snarling from low blood sugar. Between them, they had gotten two more base tracks laid down for the new album.  David was happy as a pig in mud mixing things to his satisfaction and they had partial tracks for three of the other eight songs that were for sure going on the album.

They had also gotten a single down that had had Paul bouncing happily.  With the holidays barreling down on them fast a new single was good.  And Timo had found some charity that helped homeless animals find homes that was trying to sell a calendar and album to raise money and awareness.  The single had been greeted with tears of gratitude from the shelter organizer; she’d been having a terrible time getting the people who had promised things to actually _do_ them in time for the holiday season.  They were all supposed to take a day this week and shoot for the calendar, they were also doing one for their usual children’s charity so it wasn’t that big of a deal.

Linke had stepped up and offered one of his newer pieces to help and to Juri’s quiet shock had had Mikael help record it with him.  Juri admitted the song sounded really good with two guitars, but was surprised because normally Linke asked David to play with him.  And that David was playing piano and not guitar for the song had shocked the rest of the band almost silent.

David had pulled Linke aside for a long talk after that, and Timo had grabbed Mikael for a chat about the same time.  And now Mikael was doing pensive piano playing in the evenings before they all crawled into bed.

“Well this sucks,” groused Jan as he flopped in the chair almost on Juri’s lap.

“Hunh?” was Juri’s reaction, and Jan just stuck his tongue out at him.

“You know that locked door we found?”

Mikael stopped playing to listen in.

“Yeah, I thought we found keys,” answered Juri, grateful for a distraction.

“None of them fit.”  Jan grimaced.  “Franky went around checking and found the doors that all but two of those keys go to, but none of them go to _that_ door.  It’s driving me crazy.”

“Hunh,” mused Juri, and then looked over at Mikael who had an oddly pensive look on his face.  “It’s your house, any ideas?” he asked.

“Maybe,” was the less than helpful answer. 

Jan sighed melodramatically and slumped over in Juri’s lap. “Maybe?  Maybe? Come on, yes or no _please_?’

That got a wan smile out of Mikael as the other man rose from the piano bench.  “I guess there’s really no need to keep some secrets anymore.”  With that the slender man walked over to the pillar that appeared to be a decorative point in the center of the room.  Jan got up and followed his curiosity fully engaged.  Mikael felt around the column for something and after finding it he moved to shift one of the rugs aside on the floor.

Juri blinked and walked over to stare at what looked like a blank bit of wooden flooring, then Mikael did something to a small block on the floor and it flipped up exposing a loop.  Mikael tugged at the loop but nothing happened.

“Juri? Can you give me a hand; this hasn’t been opened since I was little.”

Jan and Juri both moved to help, though only Juri could really get a hand on the ring to pull upwards.  After Mikael helped him get the right angle there was a low groan and part of the floor flipped up.  The hole showed a narrow set of steep stairs and let a faintly musty puff of air out.

“What is it with your house and hidden rooms?” Asked Jan in awe.  Juri just shook his head; who ever had built this old place had been eccentric verging into outright mad.

“Generations of paranoia and secretive insurgency,” answered Mikael wryly as he carefully climbed down.  Juri blinked and watched as Mikael ducked under the floor and Jan started down after him.  Juri felt downright claustrophobic as he followed, this stairway went down further than the ones to the studio and laundry and took a couple tight dog leg turns into complete darkness that had Juri wondering why Jan wasn’t pitching a fit.

Then there was a click and a weak light illuminated a long narrow room that had been used at some point in its past as a barracks of some sort.  The menorah crudely painted on the wall gave Juri the crawls as he realized that at some point this room had sheltered Jews from Nazi persecution, farther back in a little alcove in the wall there was a cross, older than the painted menorah and just as creepy.

“How old is your house,” asked Juri as he tried to keep his skin from crawling.

“Parts of the foundations are over eight hundred years old,” answered Mikael as he walked down past a turn and began tracing his fingers over the bricks.  “Some are older than that but if Papa ever knew how old exactly he never told me.”

Jan just looked around in awe, Juri just felt creeped out.  Jan bounded over to see what Mikael was doing when the other man pushed at one brick in particular and then shoved hard at a section of wall.  Jan leaned his weight to pushing and the section of wall pivoted slowly open.

“It used to take me, Richard and Alexei to move this when we were little.  Mama always fussed because we’d come back filthy from playing down here.” Mikael smiled in memory.  “Alexei got tired of always having to be the princess.”

Juri snorted at that as he ducked his head to follow the two shorter men into a section of hallways that made him think of the Roman catacombs with their arched ceilings, stone walls and little carved out nooks and shelves.  The walls here were brick but the feel was very similar to him.

 “Guys?” came a faint call from back the way they had come.

Jan was busy asking how far back the tunnels went.

“Not all that far, this I think is under Frau Bear’s house.  It’s only these five or six tunnels all twisting back on each other,” Mikael shrugged.  “Big enough for a group of children to play in, but not really enough to get lost in, it probably got used as a bomb shelter in the war as well as a hiding place for people who just wanted to escape.”

“Jan?” called David’s voice, closer than before. Then they all heard a shriek and went running back to where it had come from.

Timo was flailing at something by his head and cussing fervently as David was trying to get him to stop so he could see what had happened.

Juri shared a look with Jan; he suspected he knew what had happened.

“It’s the middle of fucking December,” Timo bitched, as he stopped flailing so David could finger comb the cobwebs out of his hair.  “How can there still be fucking spiders.”

“I think you just got cobwebs, Timo, not spiders.”  David kept petting though to help Timo calm back down.  Timo was rather well known for disliking things that had more than four legs.  After a few more gentle strokes Timo shook David off and glared at Mikael.

“Are there any more hidden room, hallways and hidey holes in this freaky house of yours?”

“Only a few that I know of,” answered Mikael tipping his head to the side and blinking. “But half the ones we found last week I didn’t know about.”

Timo grumbled, “Your house had more hidden shit than a brothel has kinks. Shoo all of you, Franky says its food and I’m starving.”

Mikael came up last and carefully closed the hatch in the floor while Linke watched with a bemused look on his face.  Once the rug was back in place Linke quirked an eyebrow at Mikael, “I’m beginning to think a round of hide and seek in this place would be a real challenge.”  Linke wound one arm casually around Mikael’s shoulders as they headed toward the kitchen.  “I think you need to show me where all your hiding spots are, in case I need to find you.”

“Christian,” Franky warned, “no fucking in the corners, Mikael’s only just able to walk right after last time.”

Mikael ducked his head and blushed as Linke pulled himself up to his full height.  “So I’ll be more careful next time.” Linke shoved Mikael toward the sink to wash his hands and glared down his nose at Franky.

Franky just gave Linke a look that said more clearly than words that he didn’t believe a word of Linke’s denials before he pulled a pan of rolls from the oven.

~0~

Linke was trying not to laugh as the photographer angled for good shots of Timo and the moose that was pretending to be a dog. 

Jan had been posed on a patch of indoor grass with his shirt open, in shorts and bare feet with a dachshund that had flopped his head on the DJ’s bare knee and looked up with big soulful brown eyes.  Juri had just given Jan a fond grin and offered him his sweatshirt when Jan shivered after finishing up.

David had the pair of little gray tabby kitties that had played with anything that moved, his toes, his fingers, even his hair when he picked one up to cuddle it against his cheek.  With David just in jeans sprawled out in soft white bedding he’d looked like he was posing for some beefcake magazine and Linke knew a few shots were going to vanish into Timo’s personal wank file.

Timo though had wound up posed with a black and white Great Dane that stood taller than his waist.  With Timo sitting on the floor leaning back on one arm the dog had decided Timo’s head was a great chin rest.

Timo groaned and flopped on his back and grunted in shock when the dog took that as a cue to flop down as well.  The photographer thought it was perfect and took several shots of Timo rocked up on his elbows with one hand pulling one of the dog’s huge ears as he lay sprawled over Timo’s hips and legs.

Linke turned away before he broke up completely, he had no idea how Timo was going to get the dog off without having a dinner plate sized paw planted somewhere unfortunate.

At least the initial shots made it look like Timo was playing _with_ the dog not being pinned flat and held for ransom _by_ the dog.

Linke glanced over to where Juri was being introduced to the German shepherd that was going to be his partner.  Juri would have been dwarfed by the dog Timo was with but for whatever reason the huge monster hadn’t liked Juri as well as Timo so Juri was playing pull with a rope toy and the new dog.

Linke suspected he’d get paired with a cat; Franky had been paired with an older orange tabby cat who had curled on his shoulders.  The photographer had decided that that posture absolutely had to have Franky with his glasses on, curled in a big chair with a mug of tea and a book.  And Linke had to admit the initial screen shots looked really good.  Linke suspected the cat was going to be going back home with Franky, she’d just curled up on his shoulder and purred for the whole of his part of the shoot.

“Tara, why again am I part of this?” asked Mikael in a put upon tone Linke had only learned existed today.  “And why in god’s name do I have to go without a shirt?”

That had Linke spinning about to look; the other photographer for this lunacy was someone Mikael knew rather well.  And from the fact that she was cheerfully ignoring Mikael’s protests and all but stripping his shirt off herself she was one of Mikael’s few very good friends.

“_Tar-**rah**_,” yelped Mikael as the woman yanked his sweatshirt the rest of the way off and tossed it at a chair as she shoved him toward the draped bed that David and the kittens had been shot on.

“Trust me, take your hair down and sprawl over the end of the bed facing me,” Mikael only reluctantly pulled the tie out of his hair and got into the requested position for the stylist to hit him with the expected make up.

“Tara, ‘trust me’ are the two scariest words in any language when it comes to you and your camera.” Mikael tried not to twitch as the stylist clucked over his scars and daubed them with concealer and puffed powder over it.

“Mmm,” Tara murmured. “You’re just a wuss Mikey, um, shoes off sweetie.

Mikael rolled his eyes and toed his shoes off and kicked them off the bed without moving his shoulders from where they were on the edge of the bed.

“Socks to,” she prompted as she started pacing to get angles.  Mikael sighed and peeled his socks off, throwing them at Tara in a fit of rebellion.  “Mikael,” Tara scolded as the stylist went back and powered Mikael a bit more.

“What?” Mikael protested. “I’m half naked and you haven’t explained anyth… snake.”  Linke watched as a very pretty constrictor of some sort was brought out and artfully draped over Mikael’s chest.  He had to stifle a grin as Mikael gave the snake a wary look and got a flicker of serpentine tongue in answer.

“Just like that, pout Mikey.”  The snake slid itself over Mikael’s chest apparently getting comfortable with her head resting in the hollow of Mikael’s throat right by the heavy silver pendant he still had to wear.  Linke fidgeted a bit, Mikael looked really hot like that with his head and shoulders just hanging over the edge of the bed and his hair a tumble around him.  The look he gave Tara was more a ‘why are you picking on me’ look than a real pout, but Linke suspected the women who would be buying this calendar and the men who would buy the companion one weren’t going to care that models weren’t exactly happy to be there.  Linke grimace a bit at the memory of meeting some of the other calendar volunteers.

Seeing Leo and her band mates had been interesting, to say the least.  Franky had managed to come off as sweet and adorably clueless, but had also managed to avoid getting cornered by any of the very pretty women.  Probably all to the good, Franky’s last break up with Leo had been rather ugly.  Linke still couldn’t fathom why Leo’s band mates wanted to catch Franky, it seemed rather poor taste to him, to chase a friends ex.

“Christian, shirt and shoes off.”

“What?”  Linke felt like he’d just missed something important and the look he collected had him pulling his outer shirt off and toeing his shoes off.  Once he tucked his socks into his shoes and padded barefoot over to where Mikael was still serving as a hot rock to the snake.  “Okay?”

Tara gave him an exasperated look.  “Both shirts.”

“Excuse me?” The stifled giggle he got from Mikael just made him glare harder.  All Tara did was roll her eyes.

“Paaaaul,” she called their manager and Linke cringed. “Get your bassist naked.”  The stunned look on Paul’s face was almost worth having to show his nipple rings to the world, almost.

“**_What?!_**” Paul turned to look from where he’d been watching Juri and the German shepherd.

“Him,” Tara pointed at Linke standing beside a laughing Mikael. “Shirt, off, now.”  She paused and gave Linke a glare of her own.  Mikael’s laughter made the snake sidle off his chest and one of the assistants scooped it up and had Mikael roll over on his stomach.

Paul just sighed. “Chris just go with it.  It’s for charity.”

Linke grumbled but reluctantly obeyed, and after being primped he settled on the floor while the assistant brought out another, bigger snake that she draped over Mikael’s shoulders.  This snake was more active and immediately started nosing down toward Linke’s shoulder and collarbones.

“Look at it this way, all the Panik fan girls will pour a lot of money into these calendars.”

Linke sighed and put a hand up that the snake rested its neck on and kinked it’s head up to flicker it’s tongue at him.  “True, but I feel like a side of beef on display.”

Mikael tucked a hand under part of the snake’s body to keep it from crawling down Linke to the floor. The smile he gave Linke was more relaxed than anything Tara had gotten so far. “How is this worse than being ogled by hundreds of girls at a show?”

Linke jerked his chin to clear the hair out of his eyes.  “I can run away from them and pretend they aren’t perving on me in private.”

“You can still pretend,” Mikael rested his chin in one palm and kept an eye on the snake’s restless exploring.

“Not nearly as well, before I was _dressed_.  Is she always this bad?”  Linke shot Tara a glance as she moved around them humming happily and blowing through dozens of digital frames.

“Nope,” Mikael grinned.  “She’s normally worse.”

“I’m standing right here sweetie,”

“You could pretend to be deaf?” suggested Mikael as the snake made another bid for freedom.

“Piff, you.  Fine get dressed you’re free for this shoot. Philistines.”

Linke rose and huffed. “Philistines and Gentiles weren’t as uncultured as all that.”

“Boys,” Tara shooed them out of the way so she could get another round of shots, this time with Timo and David and a bridle mastiff.

 Linke just exchanged a look and a shrug with Mikael as they pulled their shirts back on.

~0~

By the time they’d gotten back to Mikael’s feeling rather wrung out from three photo shoots over the expected two Linke was half expecting Timo to drag his camera out just for giggles.  He wasn’t expecting the squeal Jan let out after checking the forum.

“Oh god, what now?”  Linke leaned over to see the screen and almost swallowed his tongue in shock.  The post on top of the pile was new and already was nine pages long.  The title was sexy/cute band pics.

Linke was filled with dread as Jan clicked and sure enough there were shots from today’s shoots.  The one that had provoked the majority of the squealing comments was a cropped version of a shot with him and Mikael, semi relaxed and smiling with his nipple rings gleaming in the lights.

He stood up and just walked away, groaning, “I just don’t want to know.”

Timo scowled, “Who posted those up? We haven’t even seen the proofs yet.”

“Bet you it was Paul,” mused Juri as Jan paged through the pages and pages of happy fan girl comments.  “We need to not let you go out alone Jan.”

“Humm?”

“You might get snatched.” Juri kept skimming, “for that matter David might get snatched too.  What is it about licking Linke?”  Juri squinted at the screen and read the offending comment again.

David gave Juri a bemused look before going back to petting Timo’s hair.  Timo didn’t even bother to open his eyes as he flipped Juri off over the back of the couch.

Linke slapped his hands over his ears and scrunched his eyes closed. “Lalalalala I can’t hear you. I don’t want to KNOW!” he sing songed loudly.

“You don’t object to me licking you,” remarked Mikael as he brought bottles of water for everyone out of the kitchen.

Linke popped one eye open to glare.  “That’s different.”

“Really?”

“Not in the living room,” chorused Franky, Timo and David as Linke huffed indignantly.  He grabbed Mikael’s wrist and with a heave had the startled man slung over his shoulder.

“Heathens, that’s what a bed is for.”  Linke then headed for the stairs while he had the last word.

David’s voice followed him up the stairs.  “You know, that sounds like a good idea.”

~0~

Linke sighed faintly in contentment, he had a full belly, was warm and comfortably propped up on a pile of pillows and while a good book wasn’t in hand it was nearby.  He was just taking the opportunity to watch something a bit more interesting than re-reading Throne of Jade for the sixth time.  Mikael was so deeply asleep he couldn’t protest Linke memorizing every visible scrap of skin, and with Mikael all but naked there was a lot of soft pale skin for Linke’s eyes to rove over.

It wasn’t flawless skin either; Linke traced a light fingertip over the fine lace of scars that trailed down Mikael’s left side, down his leg and curiously up the inside of his upper arm.  There were freckles, scattered with a liberal hand over Mikael’s shoulders and more sparsely everywhere else and a few small moles in a rough triangle on his right hip.

Linke stroked his hand down Mikael’s spine, getting a soft moaning sigh and a little movement as Mikael moved into his hand.  He had to swallow a moan of his own as Mikael’s sleeping twitch made the deep dimples in his buttocks appear.  Linke shifted his eyes away from that far too tempting ass to the hands that had started flexing, reaching for something.  Familiar calluses made rough spots on fingers; fine boned long fingers came off a palm narrower than his own, everything familiar and yet strange when Mikael touched Linke.

One reaching hand found Linke’s hip and with a little huff Mikael shifted, winding one long arm around Linke waist and pressing his face into Linke’s side with a soft sigh.  Linke smiled slightly as his hand moved to stroke through the soft hair on Mikael’s head.  It never ceased to amaze Linke that Mikael’s dark hair was as fine and soft as David’s, who was naturally a very fair shade of blond.

They’d gotten a huge amount of work done but were breaking up to go to each of their families for Christmas.  It was only for a few days but Linke half wished he could take Mikael with him.  André already kind of liked Mikael just from what she’d heard from Linke but he wasn’t sure what his parents would think.  Sebastian would probably roll his eyes or want to know if Mikael played video games, otherwise his younger brother would likely be completely indifferent.  Basti put up with a lot of bullshit after the band got noticed so Linke was willing to let his little brother be a little bit of a brat when it came to his friends.  Only a little bit though, too much and Linke would tickle him until he squealed.

Tomorrow he would be home, Timo and David would do a brief celebration with David’s mom and step dad and the go on to Timo’s mom and sister, then they’d probably sneak back to Timo’s apartment for a day or two of quiet before coming back to record the last four songs and discuss the ideas for their first video for the album.

Linke looked forward to being home, but at the same time didn’t want to go.

Linke yelped at the feel of teeth on his hip bone and looked down into sleepy green eyes.

“You’re thinking too much,” mumbled Mikael as he shifted over a little bit and breathed over Linke’s belly.

Linke groaned and flopped backward on the bed; Mikael just nuzzled again and tugged Linke’s boxers down.  Linke moaned and groped for Mikael’s head as the other man started nuzzling and lapping at his cock in ways that made rational thought rather difficult and the sort of introspective thought he had been doing impossible.

Mikael was still exploring what kind of reactions he could get out of Linke, still learning and Linke was convinced that he was going to die before Mikael got on with it and just sucked him when his pleading finally got him the little smile he wanted.  Then Linke was too busy moaning to pay much attention to anything beyond the insides of his own eyelids.

At least now Franky wouldn’t be interrupting with a handful of freezing cold snow.

Linke gasped at the faint touch of teeth and writhed trying not to thrust up when Mikael swallowing him whole.  The second time Mikael swallowed around him Linke was trying to gasp out the warning but couldn’t get the words to come out before he was choking out a cry of pleasure.

This time Mikael didn’t splutter come everywhere and crawled up Linke to share the hot kisses they both liked after a good blow job.

~0~

Timo couldn’t put a finger on why leaving bothered him just that it felt wrong.  Looking back down the empty street made him feel like he’d left something critical behind, but David was curled up securely beside him.  Linke was on the other side of David and had just settled in with his book for the drive that would drop each of them at their homes.

Franky was sitting in front of them with Jan, and Juri was in the front seat next to the driver Paul had arranged, a new man none of them knew well yet.  Jan was chattering at Juri over something and Franky looked like he was trying to get comfortable enough to sleep.

Timo leaned his head against the window and tried to figure out what was bothering him.  It wasn’t the new album, they had eight of the twelve songs that absolutely were going on the album essentially done except for some tweaking, one single set and ready to go and two possible songs partially done that might either go on the album or go as singles themselves.

They’d gotten the calendar proofs for the individual calendars that none of them had know they were doing and copies of the version that was apparently selling **_very_** well for the animal shelter.  And they’d gotten the shots for the other two shoots they’d done.  The Stars for Kids concert was set for just after the New Year and they’d be doing bits of promo work for the new album then as well.

Timo sighed and traced a finger through the fog his breath made on the window.  Mikael would be fine until they got back the twenty ninth; it wasn’t like he’d have the chance to starve in the next few days.  Franky had gone a bit mad making up meals that could be frozen and re-heated.  Timo almost felt jealous, Franky’s freezer tarts almost never lived long enough to get frozen in the band house.  Even Juri who tried to avoid too many sweets found them irresistible.

A glance to his left and Timo snorted, Linke was texting on his phone and he only had a few people he’d send long texts to.  A friend in California, his sister, one or two other old school friends, the guys in the band and crew, even a couple of studio musicians from the label; a short list.  Timo was still betting Mikael had found something that one of them had left “accidentally” and was letting Linke know whatever it was would be there when they got back.

“He find David’s guitar,” Timo asked, unable to stop the little smirk.

“Jan’s records and two of your caps,” answered Linke, not even looking up from his phone.

Timo leaned back feeling smug.

“And Juri’s red stick bag, Franky’s fleece hoodie, which Affe seems to have laid claim to, David’s black sneakers and about a load and a half of assorted wash.”  Linke looked up at his band mates with a wry smirk.

All of them suddenly found something else to focus their attention on, which made Linke smile one of his rare genuinely sweet smiles.

“Is this you guy’s way of telling me you approve?”

~0~

The house felt strangely empty, Mikael hadn’t expected that the guys would stick around for Christmas.  They had families, and they would be back before the New Year to work on the album and for their charity concerts.  David and Franky and Juri had each made sure to ask if he was cool with them continuing to use his home as a Berlin version of their band house.  Jan had just lurked behind Juri and Timo had lurked outside the door when David had asked.

Linke knew he was welcome; the morning they’d all left Mikael had made sure to give Linke his own copy of the house keys.  With a little help he’d gotten copies of the main door key onto everyone else’s key rings.

So far only David and Timo had said anything, and David had just smiled as Timo talked about everything **but** the key.

Mikael smiled and leaned his head to the back of the couch.  He had a lap full of cats and wasn’t really inclined to move.

He thought he’d found all of the things the band had left behind and gotten them tucked into the rooms he’d already sort of tagged as theirs.  The fact that Timo and David had shared from the get go and Jan and Juri tended to sleep together regardless of which room they were in had only made him smile.  Paul had been very clear though, if someone from the media got into the house it had to appear that the boys each had their own sleeping space.  Anything else could be a complete media disaster and destroy the bands career.

Paul had also been very explicit on what kind of behaviors could not be allowed out of the house in regards to Christian.  Mikael had sort of expected it, but the talk had still stung.  He knew he couldn’t touch Chris other than playful shoves outside the house and knew that kissing was utterly forbidden.  Mikael didn’t think that any of that was going to slow Chris down if he decided he wanted to blow Mikael in the back garden again though, last time at least had been in the little alcove made by the fence, the shed and the garage.  He didn’t think anyone could have seen unless they were looking out the windows of the ball room right then.

Mikael wasn’t _happy_ with the restrictions, but he also knew that public opinion was a fickle bitch at the best of times.  The guy’s careers were more important than his wistful wants.  And there would be media scrutiny, just because he was a new player in that circle.  He’d seen that already just on the fan forum.

The shot of him and Chris and the snake had gotten several posts on the order of ‘who’s he?’ Mikael frankly was surprised that anyone had bothered to post more than a cropped shot of just Chris, that a few shots where is was just _him_ had made it up made him feel rather weird.  The comments speculating on who he was made Mikael feel even weirder until Chris had logged in and answered directly to keep the more outrageous ideas from taking off; the fact that one of those outrageous ideas was **true** wasn’t relevant.

Chris had also skimmed around the forum and answered a few other questions, he’d pimped the shelter calendar and the individual calendars a bit and made mention of the next few show dates.  Then he’d gone back and answered another set of questions on the picture post, making it sound like Mikael and the band had been friends for quite a while.

Mikael wasn’t sure how that made him feel; his insides were to twisted up and fluttery for anything to make sense.  Mikael sighed and scrubbed a hand over Mauser’s hard head, he didn’t want to get too used to this feeling.  Sooner or later they would move apart, band life on the road was hugely demanding.  Just seeing how insanely busy they were when recording and how fidgety they got when they’d all been snowed in told Mikael that none of them would really be happy with anything like a regular job.

But when he thought about the photograph of a much younger Timo and David that sat on the dresser of the room Timo officially used upstairs Mikael couldn’t help but envy them a little.  They were all friends, and that made up for a huge amount.

His few friends that were that close had lives of their own.  Richard lived for the military, Tara her cameras, Sepp, Markus, Lukas and Nikki all had lives that Mikael wasn’t part of.

Mikael closed his eyes.  He couldn’t _afford_ to be more than friends, and with Chris he was already in over his head.  Mikael opened his eyes and stared up at the elaborate figures pressed in the tin of the ceiling and repeated the mantra he’d started right after the guys had gone home for Christmas.

“Chris is my friend, sometimes we fuck around, but he’s just my friend.  He doesn’t want me as more than a friend and I’m being greedy and childish, he’s just my friend.”

It didn’t help the ache in his chest.  Mikael slept on the couch that night.

~0~

Linke heard about the preliminary hearings after they had already started and frowned at Mikael when he came in the door after his first day taking part in them.  Timo had learned about them the same way Linke had, by the television news and was just as unhappy that Mikael hadn’t said a word about having to go and speak.  That first night none of them had asked and Linke had felt weird sleeping alone.

Juri was of the opinion that Mikael knew they were busy and didn’t want them to interrupt their work on the album.  Probably true as far as it went, but it still bugged Linke that Mikael hadn’t at least told them so they could have _offered_ support if they wanted to.  Timo and Jan shared his opinion.  David felt Mikael was trying to be a good friend and not burden them with unnecessary distractions, but like Juri he wished they had been given the option to choose if they wanted to be burdened or not.

It was Franky who made the remark that had all of them sitting down and staring in shock after they’d seen part of the second day’s coverage.

“He didn’t tell us because he’s afraid we won’t support him.”  Franky looked up from the pan of stir fry he was working on to see five stricken faces staring back at him.

“But,” started David, but then he fell silent at the sad look in Franky’s eyes.

“David, if you were in trouble and we,” Franky gestured to the rest of the band with his spoon, “couldn’t be there to help you how many people can you call?”

Timo’s face went white as he did the mental math, Juri looked pensive and Linke felt like his stomach had dropped through the floor.  All of them had a circle of family to call, and friends other than each other or the crew and their manager.  Franky nodded and stirred.

“Couple dozen names on that list, right?  How many does Mikael have?”

Linke winced, not counting the band he could think of six names and of those one was out of country, four worked nights and one traveled frequently.  Sure there was his advocate but Linke knew Mikael tended to not even consider her.  When the washing machine had failed Mikael had automatically gone to his stash and after learning the machine was a total loss started looking for a second hand one to replace it.

He hadn’t registered he had a bank card and balance that was huge until Linke had reminded him.  Mikael had even looked **_confused_** until he remembered.

Mikael’s automatic fallback position wasn’t one of calling for help, it was making do alone.  Linke hadn’t even realized the washer was down until he’d caught Mikael coming in with their clean wash after _walking_ to the nearest Laundromat.  Jan had blurted out the question of why hadn’t he borrowed the keys to Linke’s car and gotten a puzzled look as his answer.

Mikael hadn’t even thought of it.  Something they all took for granted, the borrowing of a vehicle for an errand that benefited all, had never even crossed Mikael’s mind as a possibility.  Even Timo, who had learned to make do and do without after his father had left had friends he could count on, even to one who had lent him a car so he could take his driving lessons and test.

Linke had had to offer before Mikael had even thought of it, and then taken him when he realized Mikael wouldn’t ask.  Then he’d thought it was childish pride, now he was wondering if it wasn’t more than that.  He’d found almost an even dozen small hidey holes around the house, most only big enough to hide a couple books in. a few big enough for him to curl up and hide in for a few hours and one large enough to live in if needed.  It had confused Linke at first when he found stashes of money in the smaller holes. Taken individually they weren’t much, together they added up to a fair sum, and Linke had the feeling there were more of the small hiding spots all over the house that none of them had found.

Then they’d seen part of Mikael’s testimony on the news and it all fell into a sickening order.  Mikael had been under the inexpert guardianship of his older sister for five years.  Alexandra, or Alexei as Mikael called her, had been only barely seventeen when she’d taken up the care of her younger brother.  She’d already been making a name for herself as a soprano soloist and hadn’t been home much over the next five years.  Alexei had been just short of her twenty second birthday when a drunk driver had killed her and left her barely fourteen year old brother alone.

Mikael had only had two years of sporadic care from a friend’s parents before they also had died.  But in that case his friend Richard's father and mother had been rather elderly, with Richard having been a very late and unexpected child.  Tragic, but not unexpected, and Richard had gone on to military service.

That left a sixteen year old completely on his own, and he’d learned fast that four hundred Euros didn’t go very far.  Then he’d started getting his ‘allowance’ cut, that that money was all he had to live on wasn’t relevant.  It was making a huge stir now and Gottschalk was going to be lucky if he didn’t get lynched by his fellow inmates.

And it got worse; Gottschalk had tried to coerce Mikael into marrying his own daughter.  The girl in question was severely retarded acting in all ways like a seven year old girl when she was almost thirty.  When Timo saw a picture of the girl he’d shuddered and declared ‘not even for the survival of the species’ would he have been able to fuck her.

So many things they had thought were childish pride; Linke shuddered and rose at the sound of the key in the lock.  It was pride, but more the desperate realization he had no one else to lean on.  Mikael shut the door behind him and locked it automatically before starting to unbutton his coat. When he looked up he looked like he just wanted to drop in place and die.

All the things Linke wanted to say died in his throat.  If it was bad to hear secondhand it clearly had been hell to recount firsthand.

Linke moved to brush Mikael’s chilled hands away from the buttons and started undoing them himself, peeling Mikael out of his coat and hanging it up before tucking an arm around the shorter man’s shoulders to herd him into the kitchen.

There Mikael couldn’t make himself meet anyone’s eyes; he just shrank into himself a little and tried to slip away from Linke’s side.

Linke just tightened his grip and firmly made Mikael sit down.  Franky set another plate and bowl down and filled the bowl from the communal pot of soup, egg drop tonight to go with the stir fry.

“It’s okay,” murmured Franky as he set the filled bowl down.  “We understand you didn’t want to bother us with it, we just wish you had anyway.”

“You’re a friend,” Piped up Jan as he held the serving bowl for Franky to fill with the stir fry from the pan.

“I,” Mikael started and had to cough.

Linke hugged him and gently patted his back while Timo filled another glass with water and offered it to Mikael.

“I have to go back,” Mikael said softly after a few sips of water cleared his throat.

“They didn’t finish?” Timo asked, and then winced.

Mikael mutely shook his head no and looked utterly miserable.

David gave Linke a look and after a small internal wince Linke started quietly encouraging Mikael to eat.  He managed the soup and about a half serving of the rice and stir fry before all he could do was stare at his plate and push little bits of vegetables around with his fork.

Linke finished quickly and when a nudge didn’t get the reaction he was hoping for he scooped Mikael up and headed upstairs.  Linke didn’t expect Mikael to break down almost immediately after he set Mikael on the bed.  Linke just wound long arms around the smaller man and held him as he cried.  The broken bits he was able to understand made his blood run cold.

Mikael blamed himself for his sister’s death.  A bit of childish rebellion and a drunk driver and Mikael was convinced it was his fault.  Linke hugged Mikael tight and murmured inane reassurances into Mikael’s messy hair until the sobs trailed off and the hands that had been fisting in his jumper relaxed.  When Linke sat back Mikael still wouldn’t look at him.

“Sorry,” Mikael croaked.

“You’ve had a shitty day, it’s okay.”  Linke rose and went to the bathroom for a damp cloth to help Mikael wash his face, but Mikael was so worn out that when he got back less than a minute later Mikael was already curled into a tight little knot asleep.

Linke gently wiped the tear tacks he could reach and tossed the cloth more or less back into the bathroom.  Then he stripped down to his boxers and carefully maneuvered Mikael out of his trousers and shirts before inveigling him under the blankets.  Linke turned the light out and crept under the blankets himself and felt a huge weight lift off his chest when Mikael cuddled right into his arms with an unhappy little whimper.

The soft sound of footsteps made Linke turn toward the half closed door in time to see Timo slip inside.

“David and Juri looked up the full coverage on the net, it’s bad.”  Timo crept up on cat quiet feet and shook out the duvet that had slid for the floor two seconds after Linke had slid under the other blankets.  “David needs Jan, Franky and Juri tomorrow, so you and I can go with him.”  Linke started to protest as Timo spread the duvet over them both.  “Shut it Chris.  He’s been a better friend to us in the last three months than some of our old friends have been.”

Linke grimaced and nodded.  One of Timo’s ex girlfriends had popped up over the summer and done an interview with Popcorn that was still settling out.  At least the paternity test had come back showing the girl had lied about the baby girl being Timo’s, but it had still made a huge mess.  One of the tabloid journalists had bearded Mikael on the subject after he’d been let out of protective custody and gotten told if they really thought Timo would abandon a kid of his own that there was a clinic down the road that dealt with mental cases.  Jan had caught it and almost died laughing, his hooting had disrupted David’s recording and resulted in him having to do a section over but had made them all laugh in the end.

Some days they really needed to laugh.  Linke sighed and tucked Mikael’s head under his chin and hoped they wouldn’t have a string of days like that this week.  He didn’t know if he was strong enough to cope.

~0~

Linke wanted to snarl at the reporters.  Even the civilized ones were being pushy and slightly rude in their questions.  Two days of gluing himself to Mikael’s hip as he went to speak before the judges made him wonder how the hell Mikael had made it through the first day and a half alone.  His advocate wasn’t the same as a friend.

Today Linke hoped the lawyers would run out of questions, yesterday he’d expected Mikael to break down when the one had savagely prodded Mikael about the death of his sister.  Somehow he’d managed to get through without Linke standing up and decking the man.  Timo had held an iron grip on his elbow and when things got really bad another witness has firmly clamped a ham sized hand on Linke’s shoulder.

Today that same man was seated directly behind them again; his military uniform was neat if a bit worn around the edges.  The direct brown eyed stare made Linke feel like he was being weighed. But his calm actually helped as Mikael sat in the witness stand as the lawyers argued out their final points and demanded clarification of a few trivial details.  When Mikael was released the man rose and before Linke could get to Mikael’s side he was there shielding Mikael from the camera’s, he also indirectly shielded Timo and Linke he was so big and broad.  Linke was used to being tall, not to feeling small, was this how Jan felt when Linke and Juri flanked him in photo shoots?

They went along and were swept into a small side room to let Mikael get his bearings before braving the crowd of media outside.  Linke felt a surge of jealousy when he saw Mikael being held by the other man.  He didn’t know quite what to do though, this man was easily ten centimeters taller than he was and looked like he could bench press Linke and Juri’s weight easily on one arm.

“Gonna make it Mikmik.”  Linke fumed at that gentle nickname, Mikael wasn’t a child.

“Yeah,” Mikael scrubbed at his eyes looking in that instant like the child Linke refused to label him as.  “I just didn’t expect to see you; I thought you were on rotation still.”

The big man beamed down at Mikael. “I got sent back, because of the idiocy around this case; they wanted my testimony but didn’t like what they got.”  Then Linke got speared in place by that level stare.  “Sepp and Lukas I saw in the gallery, but I don’t recognize these two.”

Mikael made a face Linke recognized as being a mental kick; Franky did something similar when he realized he’d forgotten something.

“Richard, Timo Sonnenschien and Christian Linke; Chris, Timo this is Richard Ghueler.”  The big man gave Linke a long level stare, and Linke found himself pulling himself to his full height to glare back.  Timo just looked back and forth between them before shaking his head.

“Stop with the killer glares, the paint won’t take it.”

Mikael barely stifled the giggle, it was slightly hysterical sounding, but given the amount of stress he’d been under Linke could understand.  Linke didn’t even think about observers, he just reached out and pulled Mikael into a close hug and after one last glare at the man mountain Mikael had identified as one of his oldest friends rubbed his cheek over Mikael’s hair and whispered soft inanities in his ear.

~0~

Linke might have decided to ignore the moose that walked like a man but Timo had continued to observe.  He’d gotten a little flicker of amusement after his paint peeling crack but Linke had decided Mikael needed a cuddle and everyone else could fuck the hell off.  Hell after just _watching_ the grilling Timo had needed some serious cuddles of his own yesterday, he’d all but bitten his tongue bloody keeping himself from yelling at the one lawyer and if they hadn’t had moose man plant a paw on Linke he’d have lost his temper and tried to deck the man.

Strangely when Linke wrapped Mikael up in a cuddle the big guy had relaxed a little.  Timo was used to figuring out the emotions behind _blue_ eyes, all his band mates had variations on blue eyes, so he was having some issues with deciphering the emotions behind Richard’s _brown_ ones.  At least at first, there was no mistaking it when the big man relaxed and smiled fondly down at Mikael and by extension Linke and Timo.

Timo felt short, **_really_** short, was this how Jan felt all the time surrounded by people taller than him?  No wonder Jan had a wicked sense of humor and a truly evil mind for pranks.  Being a short geek he’d had to learn to keep from getting squished by everyone around him.

Timo resolved to be a better friend and not harass Jan about his height, but he wasn’t going to be responsible for his actions if the next words out of Linke’s mouth were ‘smile for me.’

Mikael seemed to be thinking something on the same lines, either that of Timo was thinking so loud the world could understand him, because he gently planted a fingertip over Linke’s lips and silenced the fretting bassist.

Timo knew Mikael was trying very hard to be good; Paul had given him a grilling and a half about proper behaviors for the sake of band image.  Hell, _he’d_ given Mikael the talk about image and expectations.  Seeing the wan smile Mikael gave Linke made him feel like an asshole all over again, but Mikael needed to know that stuff.

Timo twitched and look up and up into the brown eyes of Mikael’s friend.  Now he could read the big man’s face, and after concern and amusement there was a lot of curiosity chasing around behind those eyes.

“How long,” he asked quirking an eyebrow at Linke as he hugged Mikael and stroked his hair.  Timo didn’t even think about bluffing.

“Couple months, close a few weeks. He didn’t say anything or one of us would’ve been here from the start.”  Timo wasn’t sure why he was defending himself on that point, but from the pained grimace it was a point they all were guilty of.

“I was on a plane and then briefings so I could get here at all.  And Mik never mentions things that are important anymore.”  The big man’s voice was both sad and resigned, like this stubborn self dependence thing of Mikael’s wasn’t a new thing.

That made Timo perk up, maybe it wasn’t that Mikael didn’t trust them, maybe it _was_ more universal, like Franky thought.  Richard sighed and watched Mikael and Linke standing together and just being.  If you knew something was up or knew one of the players it was obvious, but if he hadn’t known Linke like he did Timo would have thought it was just a comfort hold after a hellish day of testimony not a lover hold.

He was willing to bet that Richard was doing some mental math and figuring out what needed to happen to protect his friend from them if needed.  The band had done a quick meeting without Linke to figure out how they felt about Mikael when it had started to become clear the guy wasn’t going to be just a fling.  Linke didn’t do male flings and female ones were very rare and Linke sure as hell didn’t call the female ones afterwards.  Call them a cab to get home, but not calling to make sure they got home.

Timo realized he was chewing his lower lip in thought and forced himself to stop.  When Jan had caught the bit of news report they’d all been upset.  When they’d gone digging for the reports on line they’d been sickened.  Of twenty six people Gottschalk and his little coterie supposedly managed trust funds for only fourteen had been found and positively identified as being who they said they were.  Of the twelve remaining four were dead, one of those had been a four year old boy killed in an unspecified ‘accident’ that was now being very thoroughly reviewed.  The eight left as ‘missing’ were one and all children, the oldest only seven years old.

When David had pulled the public record of the adult ‘survivors’ as they were all now being called, he’d fled his computer to be sick.  Only three were male, and of them all only Mikael hadn’t been working as a prostitute in some form or fashion.  Several of the older girls were happy enough with where they were now, and would probably continue working in the business, but none of them were happy with how they had gotten there.

Now all the protective custody nonsense made sense in a sickening way.  Several people had come forward as being each of the adult victims, and had to be checked over and eliminated.  Some had come forward because Gottschalk had told them to, others had simply been opportunists.

It all made Timo sick.

He wanted to go home and hug David tight and whisper the words they only very rarely spoke aloud and just be held by someone who loved him back with all his heart.

~0~

Franky didn’t like all the police cars discretely lurking around, the media he was used to, and he could pull out his cute and clueless fluffy bunny singer act on them.  With the trial of the Gottschalk Six in full swing the police were trying to protect all the known first hand witnesses and with Mikael one of only a few living at home over the provided hotel accommodations he had a higher level of risk, and thus had a more visible set of watch dogs.

Linke had jokingly suggested taking Mikael on as an assistant guitar tech to help out Conrad and to keep Mikael moving.  With the charity gig coming up in a few days and Conrad looking a bit worn around the edges because of pulling double duty to the band Paul was starting to seriously consider it.

Franky felt weird about the whole thing, partly guilty because Mikael had opened up his house to them and did as much quiet support as he could.  Mikael claimed it helped keep him from thinking, but Franky still felt guilty about not doing his own washing and with time crunches getting even tighter with publicity and promotion duties getting heavier.  Franky hadn’t realized that Mikael had taken up the shopping duties for the band until he’d come back to the house dreading having to go out to get food so they could eat that night only to find Mikael and Juri quietly talking as they emptied bags.

Franky couldn’t remember the last time he’d pounded on David’s door begging him to finish Timo off so they could sleep.  Jan’s little sleepwalking incidents were on the rise and Juri had taken to carrying the DJ back to a room if it even _looked_ like he was going to sleepwalk.  Which right now was pretty much any time Jan dropped off to sleep in a public space, and Franky didn’t think that would change until the album was done and they were back on the road.

With a nod to the officer in the unmarked car parked across the street from the house Franky trotted up and unlocked the door.  He’d gotten done a bit early at the studio today and rather than kick around and be bored Franky had taken the bus home.  There was a really nice market on the route here and he’d stopped to get a few things.

A few things had turned into three bags worth but Franky had been happy to catch a few cartons of berries on special and berries meant cream, and cream meant sweet cakes to cover with berries and cream.  So his initial need to stop for a bit of milk ran over a bit.

Franky hummed happily as he put away his purchases and grinned down at Affe as the little imp wound around his ankles mewing happily.  Once everything was put away Franky scooped the cat up and went into the living room.  Mauser was curled in his favorite chair purring in his sleep, Jan was dozing on the couch and Franky could just hear the sound of Linke’s voice.  Juri and Timo were still recording with David but with a little bit of luck they’d have the baseline recording done today and only have the mixing and tweaking to do.  Franky let Affe down on the couch when he started to squirm and went looking to see what Linke was doing.

Franky followed Linke’s voice through the music room and into the ball room.  When he didn’t find Linke there Franky walked back toward the staircase and blinked in surprise at yet another of the hidden in the wall doors standing open under the deep curve of the staircase.

Peering in Franky could only vaguely see that the compartment, room, whatever it was extended back under the stage area and was only just tall enough for Linke to stand in.  Not that Linke was standing; he was curled up on the floor beside Mikael rummaging in an old trunk filled with what looked like old papers.

Linke had his back to Franky and was singing something in English that Franky couldn’t make sense of and making Mikael laugh.  Something silly about cows and spoons that almost sounded like a child’s lullaby warped into a bouncy silly song.

Mikael caught sight of him and jumped which made Linke spin around to see and jump a bit himself.  Franky grinned, it wasn’t often he got the drop on his band mates.

“No snow, so you’re good,” Franky teased.  The last few times he’d gotten the drop on Linke had been because he was fooling around with Mikael when he was supposed to be behaving.  Three repeats of handfuls of cold wet snow to delicate equipment had Linke a bit paranoid.

“Good, I like my balls the color they are,” Linke shot back, which made Mikael pink up and choke back a giggle.

“Blue’s a good color on you though, Linke.”  Franky grinned and ducked the blow Linke mimed at him.  Then Franky noticed that there were a handful of keys beside Mikael’s knee.  “Still trying to get that door open?”

“Yeah, Mikael thought there might be keys in other places, so we’ve been checking all the storage rooms.  There’ve been some really odd things put away.”

Franky blinked, given how odd the house was how could anything found tucked away in its many odd corners be anything but strange.  The flute hidden in the bedpost of his room had left Franky terribly confused and had started everyone looking for oddities in the furniture.

So far the grand total had been a fistful of twisted brass bits, the flute, several letters, some sheet music (which was dreadful on piano or guitar) and a trio of old keys, none of which fit the door that had been driving them all crazy.  Speculation had passed the point of absurdity weeks ago and even Conrad had remarked that it would be funny if after all this the stupid room was empty.

Franky blessed the solid little tech and had almost laughed himself sick when he’d had to spend a night with the band due to the late hour and how stupid exhausted they all were.  Conrad had come down to breakfast to find Linke kissing Mikael breathless against the sink.  Franky and David had both expected a small explosion but all Conrad had done was collect a full mug of coffee, dump an obscene amount of sugar into it and watch meditatively until Mikael had noticed their observer and jumped.

David had managed to ask if it bothered him and after taking another sip of his coffee Conrad had shrugged and answered that at least Mikael and Linke were quieter than Jan and Juri were.  The tech had then gone on to ask plaintively about breakfast, he’s spoken to Mikael a bit afterwards but the only change Franky had noticed was that Mikael was a bit more relaxed around the tech and was trying to help more.

That little incident had made them all a bit more careful even if it had been funny as hell at the time and had made them revise their opinion of Conrad upward a fair bit, from ‘cool guy we work with’ to real friend.

~0~

Franky had the peculiar privilege of overhearing Mikael and Linke’s first fight.  It wasn’t a big one, really only a minor disagreement if ranked next to the fights David and Timo had but it had shocked Franky into stopping and listening.

For what he could gather Linke had talked to Paul about Mikael becoming a guitar tech for them and had forgotten to talk to Mikael first.  When Paul had made a tentative offer Mikael had frozen up, but managed to say he’d think about it.  Later he and Linke had gone round and round on the subject with Mikael insisting he didn’t need anyone’s pity and Linke trying to explain it wasn’t pity and Mikael wouldn’t be the male equivalent of a band babe tag along.

Mikael’s angry comment that he wasn’t a groupie had made Franky’s chest hurt.  Linke’s half snarl that he didn’t fuck groupies and he sure as fuck didn’t cuddle them or sleep with them after made Franky slap a hand over his mouth to keep from squeaking.

Franky had managed to tear himself away after that, it had sounded like the argument was essentially over and later at dinner the two hadn’t acted like they were still upset with each other.  Mikael had even sat down at the studio and started asking quiet questions of the crew, but they all knew Mikael would have to be free to move about more than he was now to take them up on the offer.  Inside Germany he was essentially free, but the police really preferred it if he stayed in Berlin and got really unhappy if out of country travel was so much as mentioned.

Franky sighed as he watched Linke brush a bit of cobweb out of Mikael’s hair.  Those two were as besotted as Timo and David; they just hadn’t admitted it yet.

~0~

Linke both loved and loathed charity shows.  He loved them because it meant he was able to give something back to the community that had helped make him and his band successful.  He loathed them because of the thousand fiddly little details that had to be dealt with on top of the million that already needed to be taken care of for each show.  Linke sighed and managed to make a suitably goofy face for the television cameras that were circulating around the green room, stage and backstage areas.  He was a touch crabby because he couldn’t find the warmer shirt he’d wanted to wear and because for some silly reason the reporters were more interested in his take on the Gottschalk Six trials than on the charities the show was supporting.

David had already made a few pointed remarks about this being about music and the kids, not some corrupt and petty mindedly evil banker.  Timo had just tried to be charming and diverted the questions back toward what they were doing, Franky had gone for cute and clueless but even he was getting a touch irritable over the whole thing.  Jan and Juri had managed to fly under the radar for the most part and Linke was wishing he’d been able to as well, just his luck that all the foreign correspondents targeted him for his English.

Then Mikael came in with a handful of dark green cloth and a steaming cup of tea.  Linke sighed in relief as he pulled the warmer shirt on over the thin t-shirts he was already wearing.  He then accepted the cup with a smile of gratitude.

“We’re almost there.  Conrad says after this next act you guys are up and the crew for La Fee is pretty on the ball.”  Mikael sighed and folded to his knees on the floor beside Linke’s chair.  If it wouldn’t have provoked talk Linke would have happily moved over to let Mikael sit beside him, the stupid chair was more than big enough. 

Linke managed to smile when the reporter came over to badger Mikael, and was pleasantly surprised when this one **_didn’t_** ask about the Gottschalk case, just about the music and why a known classical guitarist was hanging out with an alternative rock group.

Mikael’s easy laugh and answer of they were friends mollified the man for a few minutes as he probed about the new album and about the rumored solo album Linke was putting out.

A loud bang and the sound of Timo swearing distracted everyone.  By the time Linke and Mikael got to the rappers side there was already a paramedic looking over Timo’s left hand.  The fact that two of his fingers were already swelling was a very bad sign.  Mikael hissed and put a hand on Linke’s shoulder.

“I’ll go warn the guys we need to adjust the set list,” he said and slipped off to find David, Paul and Conrad.  Linke hadn’t even had time to nod before Mikael was gone.  If they were very, **_very_** lucky Timo hadn’t broken fingers when the table had fallen and caught his hand between it and his chair.

Paul was at their side a few moments after Mikael had gone after him, and the rest of the band had gathered less than a minute after that.  Timo wasn’t happy to have to drop three of the songs from the set list though and was arguing loudly against it.  Linke wasn’t happy either, but as all three _required_ a second guitarist and as Conrad only knew one backwards and forwards there was no way to keep them.  One was from the new album and this show would have been a perfect promo for it.

Mikael was chewing his lip and looking pensive as he watched, and Linke had a brainstorm.  Mikael knew all three songs, the one on the album he’d found a third guitar counter point that David had thought long and hard about recording.

“Timo, what if Mikael took your guitar parts,” Linke blurted out before he could talk himself out of it.

Timo and David’s faces both lit up at the idea, and Timo turned to see how Mikael felt about the idea.

“I haven’t played on stage in a long time,” Mikael warned, but Linke could see he didn’t want to say no when Timo had his begging face on.

The paramedic would have been a lot happier if Timo had just skipped the show, but after a bit of pleading from Jan and David had surrendered to the inevitable and just carefully taped Timo’s fingers and given them a stern injunction to go straight to the clinic after the show was over to be sure Timo hadn’t broken them.

Conrad had his head together with Mikael over Timo’s Gibson as the rest of the crew started the rush to get everything set up on stage.  Linke had focused on making sure his gear was ready, his strap taped securely in place and then in helping Jan get his tables set and ready to go.

A quick sound check and Linke was looking back behind David’s e-piano and stage left of Juri’s drums to where Mikael was getting a wireless pack clipped securely to his belt.  Linke took a deep breath and the band circled up for the abbreviated version of their little pre show ritual.

Then the curtain rose as they shifted back into place and Juri counted in the beat for Revolution.

He barely had time to think after that.

~0~

Linke barely remembered the meet and greet after the show.  The post slow let down was huge and all he wanted to do was to drop where he stood and sleep for a week.  Timo had gone from the show straight to the clinic and David had passed the word on to them that he was still waiting to be x-rayed but that the doctors didn’t think he’d broken his fingers.

That had been a huge relief to everyone, Linke wobbled a bit and smiled wanly down at Mikael as the shorter man steered him toward a chair and tried to be charming for the fans while only appearing to be a concerned friend.

“You can’t fall over yet Chris,” Mikael teased, his voice sounding a bit odd to Linke’s knowing ears but probably coming across as playful if tired to the girls clustering around.  He badly wanted to just hug Mikael close and bury his face in the smaller man’s long hair but he was a professional so Linke managed a goofy face and a vaguely lewd noise for the girls.  That got him the cluster of giggles he wanted and a wan smile from Mikael as the other got him securely settled in a chair.

“I’m going after coffee for Jan and David, Conrad got tea for Franky and Juri, do you want anything?”

“Coffee,” Linke pleaded pulling out the begging eyes to the apparent delight of the girls.  At least they had turned the flashes on their cameras off he mused in some relief.  He tried to be charming as he talked to the girls and signed things for them.  Linke managed to smile for the pictures with each of the fans, but was hugely grateful when Mikael came back with a large cup of coffee sugared just the way he liked it and a new pen as the one he had been using was starting to fade out and fail.

The trio of girls that hadn’t gotten pictures yet giggled at the look of quiet relief on Linke’s face as he eagerly accepted the cup and pen.  Tea just wasn’t going to cut it right now.  The television crew hung back and just filmed everything, focusing a bit more on David as one reporter asked the same set of silly questions about how the show went.

“The crew has things about eighty percent packed up.”

“David and my guitars,” Linke started to ask, but Mikael gave him a smile.

“Are safe, Conrad and I got all of them safely stowed away and on the truck Juri’s drums were being loaded and Jan’s table was ready to load when I was getting coffee for you guys.  David was about to drop where he stood if he didn’t get sugar and caffeine.”

Linke smiled wryly as he looked over to where the guitarist was lovingly cradling his cup, from the way David held it the cup was already more than half empty.  Conrad called for Mikael and the other man was on his feet and moving before Linke had time to say anything else, so he turned his full attention back to the cluster of girls and tried to be charming.

He signed the notebooks, pictures, calendars and posters he was asked to, smiled his little crooked grin for the pictures and listened as best he could to the happy babbling of the fans.  Most of them just were happy to be able to say they’d met them and tell them in person how much they enjoyed the music.

The two girls from America made him twitch a tiny bit when they gushed in unison about how much they loved him, but he knew they didn’t really mean it the way they said it so he managed to say thank you with reasonable grace.  After they moved on to squeal and gush over poor Jan, Linke was asked by another fan about ‘the cutie’ who had brought him the coffee.  Linke had blinked in confusion until the girl clarified by briefly describing Mikael.

“Oh, OH, you mean Mikael?”  Linke stomped on his jealousy and reminded himself that the fans were a bit odd and even poor Conrad had a fan following after his appearances on the KYTE viewer.  The girl smiled and nodded and Linke managed to smirk back as he trotted out the agreed on public line about Mikael being a friend of the band.

“But he played for Timo on Jericho and Timo isn’t here now,” the girl pressed, sounding prettily concerned.

“Timo had a small accident backstage before we went on, Mikael knows some of the newer songs,” Linke shrugged trying to downplay things a bit.  Paul would have a fit if any rumors about Panik adding a seventh musician started up again.  “He was just helping out so Timo wouldn’t fret about not being able to show everyone the new music from the album.”

Thankfully that diverted the girl away from Mikael and toward the absent Timo and after fluttering a bit and taking several pictures she went off to flutter at David.  Linke smirked at the guitarist trying to be charming to a dozen fluttering girls and quickly slugged the rest of his coffee before rising to let a photographer take some group shots of the fans with the band.  The security team herded the girls out and Linke flopped back into a chair with a low groan.

“I want a shower,” was Jan’s plaintive comment.

“Shower and bed,” agreed Juri sounding exhausted.

“Food,” prompted Franky. “Bed last but food and shower don’t care about order.” Franky sprawled out on the floor and flopped an arm over his eyes.

“Did you forget to eat lunch again,” queried David.  Franky peeked up from under his arm and sighed.

“You know I get queasy if I eat right before a show,” reminded the singer.

“True,” agreed David as he curled into a ball in the corner of the couch.  “Okay food, showers, sleep, and check on Timo.”

“Sounds like a plan,” voted Linke.  “But we need to check on Timo first, he’ll be grumpy if we put food and sleep first.”

“Showers are ready guys,” called Paul and Linke groaned.  That meant moving. Juri rose and after pulling Jan then Franky up to their feet offered the bassist a hand.  Linke took it and gratefully let the drummer haul him to his feet.

Hot water did sound lovely, even if he didn’t have Mikael to scrub his back for him.

~0~

Timo bitched and groused about having to keep his fingers splinted until the doctors were sure the mashed tendons were healing properly, but at least he hadn’t broken them.  David had fussed over him when they’d gone to pick him up at the clinic and while Timo had shoved David off and grumbled everyone knew he was pleased that David had fussed over him in public.

The one media camera that had followed to get the scoop on Panik’s injured rapper had gotten a good set of shots of Timo and David being cute.  The world thought it was just them being best friends, well other than about half the female fan base for the band.  And no-one was going to admit to those girls that all their observations were accurate, some of what they giggled over and pointed out to each other really was just Timo and David being best friends and David having no concept of personal space and not really lover-like behavior at all.  At least not **_intentional_** lover-like behavior, the cuddles and kisses got hidden behind closed doors and god help them if shots of _that_ ever got out.

Paul had shoved Mikael in the van with the rest of the band; apparently he wanted to get Mikael out of sight so the media loonies would focus back on the charity side of the show and quit asking questions of the poor guy.  So as soon as Timo and Paul had signed the paperwork their manager shooed them off to go find food and crash back at Mikael’s.

A brief argument over what they wanted to eat got settled by Timo pulling the wounded card and David switching sides to back him up.  Linke smirked happily, much as he liked the Italian place by Timo’s apartment he wanted to try the new Indian place that was going in not that far from Mikael’s.  It was a new store run by the same family as the Indian place in Hamburg that they all liked and he wanted to see if it was just as good.

If nothing else Timo and David would get to be happy vegetarians and graze off the buffet until they couldn’t move.

Linke yawned as they piled out of the van and walked in.  The waiter who seated them was familiar and even recognized Timo asking after his hand as he seated them and collected their drink orders.  Seven buffet orders had the young man smiling as he went off to get their drinks.

It was only after David and Timo started piling their plates with tandoori eggplant, rice and fried lentil donuts that Linke realized Mikael looked lost.  Linke grinned and after resolving to not let Jan or Timo sucker Mikael into trying a faal without warning him how spicy it was first.

After picking a few of his own favorites he nudged Mikael toward some of the less lethally hot options on the rather more extensive than he expected buffet table.  The milder lentil and spinach soup would be safer than the lentil and chili concoction Timo buried his rice in and the tandoori chicken was safer than the fish that Jan was wrapping in bits of naan bread.

A few platefuls later and they all were feeling quite a bit better.  Even better the pretty daughters of the owner (the second son of the owner in Hamburg, just as Linke had suspected) came out with the order of lassi for everyone and fluttered and flirted a bit with all of them as they lingered over plates full of fruit and mango ice cream.

Linke sighed happily; the show had gone reasonably well given that Timo had smushed his fingers.  Timo would heal and be a lot more careful in future and they’d gotten a very good meal and would be able to either go out and party a bit or go home and fall over into warm comfortable beds.

A glance toward Mikael and Linke was listing toward the home and bed option, from how Timo was yawning and drooping toward David he didn’t think his would be the only vote for an early night of it.  A huge yawn swept over Juri’s face and the drummer laughed after it passed joking about charity gigs taking it out of him; which was true, charity gigs tended to take it out of all of them.

After paying their bill they all piled back into the van and let their driver haul them all back to Mikael’s for the night.

~0~

Linke hummed softly into Mikael’s hair and snuggled a little tighter into the smaller man’s back, the little whimper and feel of a pert little bottom pushing back into his belly was reward enough for now.  As he woke up that would change but for now life was good.

Gradually Linke woke and went from nuzzling and idly petting Mikael’s chest and belly to actively rocking his firming erection into Mikael’s backside and fondling of the other man’s equipment, which had already firmed up nicely.  When Mikael tried to touch himself Linke chuckled and caught both slender wrists; after he’d secured them in one hand Linke groped for the scarf he’d used last night to bind his lover to the bed.  It was right where he’d left it.

Mikael didn’t fight being bound, but he did nip Linke’s finger when Linke traced his fingers over Mikael’s lower lip.  Linke returned the favor, first by renewing the mark of Mikael’s shoulder, then by planting sharp little nipping kisses all down Mikael’s side.  The skin between the traceries of scars was extraordinarily sensitive and Linke loved how he could use that to turn Mikael into a squirming mess.

After a while though Mikael’s whimpered pleas, heated gasps and desperate little squirms were too much and Linke reached for the lube.  This time though Mikael rolled to his back and spread his legs, a position they hadn’t used much yet for anything other than oral.

Linke just smirked and slicked his fingers, rolled a condom onto his cock and slicked it and then reached his fingers down to play with Mikael’s tight little hole.  Linke played for a while before sliding in, he had no desire to repeat their first mistakes and get Franky after them again.  Eyes closed in concentration Linke groaned and started to move, savoring the tight cling slip of Mikael’s ass, he was thus rather surprised to feel clever fingers binding the hand the braced against the bed frame **_to_** the bed frame.

Mikael rolling them over was nice though, but him slipping off was a bit frustrating, and Linke growled his displeasure.  The breathless little laugh he got only made Linke growl again and pout when Mikael tied his other wrist to the bed.  The little spark in Mikael’s eyes when he whispered ‘my turn’ made Linke’s belly flip over and his balls ache.

Mikael was very careful when he lubed his fingers and moved them down between Linke’s legs.  Linke grunted a little when the first one slid in, but pushed back as hard as he could anyway.  Beginners luck had that questing fingertip grazing over his prostate right off and Linke was groaning and writhing into the touch.  One finger became two, and Linke wanted to scream for Mikael to just put it in him when his cautious lover moved up to three.  He couldn’t restrain himself when Mikael slid a forth in, and snarled something to the effect of he wasn’t breakable and to just fuck him already.

Linke still choked on a scream as Mikael slid all the way in at one go, but he had enough presence of mind to wrap his legs around Mikael’s hips before the other man could pull out thinking he’d hurt Linke.  After a few moments Linke flexed his ass and pushed up as hard as he could.  It took him squirming a bit and demanding that Mikael move before Mikael slid out and slammed back in, a series of shorter but still hard thrusts followed as Mikael leaned over Linke’s chest and nipped at Linke’s nipples.  The little sparkles of pain when Mikael tugged a little too hard went straight to Linke’s cock and made his higher brain shut down.

The little jolts as Mikael learned where Linke’s hot buttons were felt like purest torture, but gradually Mikael’s aim improved and after the first square hit had Linke writhing and demanding harder Mikael focused purely on pounding that spot over and over again.

Linke could feel the end coming when Mikael let out a whimper and groped for Linke’s cock trying to get a few last hard thrusts in as his hand stroked the still slick latex covered hardness.  The feel of teeth on one nipple was the final bit of stimulation Linke needed to scream, fill the condom still covering him and go limp with a shaking Mikael shuddering over him.

A fumbling hand reached up and tugged at the scarf and freed Linke’s left hand.  A bit more work had his right freed also and Mikael dropped and just wound his arms around Linke to shake out the last bits of aftershock.

Linke panted and flexed his ass, which made Mikael whimper and push back, a few repeats and Mikael pulled slowly out but Linke wouldn’t let the other man rise just yet.  He wound long arms around his lover and rolled so Mikael was under him and started nuzzling again.  Linke smiled into Mikael’s throat at the feel of a long fingered hand tangling in his hair and just settled in to enjoy the afterglow for as long as he could.

They were just starting to kiss and pet again when someone pounding on the door made them both jump.  And David’s voice shouting that they needed to get up, something bad had happened got them both up and moving.  Mikael yelled back that they’d be right out as Linke went to the bathroom for a washcloth to do a quick clean up.

Less than ten minutes later they were both dressed, even if Mikael was in one of Linke’s shirts, and downstairs with the others watching the breaking news on the television with wide horrified eyes.

Someone was killing the witnesses in the Gottschalk case.  Three of the children had been struck and killed in hit and run incidents as they walked to or from school.  In each case a stolen car had been used and later abandoned, the last one had been set afire and gutted before anyone had found it.

Linke wound his arms around Mikael as the other man’s knees threatened to give out in shock.

“A little late now don’t you think,” was Timo’s caustic observation as Linke herded a shaking Mikael over to a chair.  Linke could tell Timo was just as horrified and shaken but the rapper tended to hide behind sarcasm after a shock.

Another breaking news bulletin, one that had Franky letting out a whimper of horror; one of the other witnesses had been shot in the back and left in the street as she came back from a shopping trip.  She’d died before help could get to her.  The police were tightening security around all the other survivors.

Franky had noticed there were more police cars around the house, but had thought it was just a changeover in their watchers.  When he walked shakily to the kitchen window he saw they were all still out there and a very nice Mercedes was pulling up into the drive.  The woman who got out was familiar; Mikael’s advocate, but the police car that followed made Franky uneasy.  That looked like a senior _Kripo,_ a big man made even larger by his personal body armor.

Franky’s unease got worse when he watched the _Kripo_ help Frau Maurer pull a very heavy looking bag from the trunk of her car before walking with her toward the door.  He headed for the door at a trot and was yanking it open just as the _Kripo_ raised his hand to knock.  Less than a heartbeat later Timo was standing at Franky’s left shoulder glaring for all he was worth.

Frau Maurer quickly introduced _Land_ Egger and reluctantly Franky let them both in and led them back to the living room where the others were gathered watching the television.  Another of the adult witnesses had been shot in the back and killed.

“Herr Tomlinson is alive,” _Land_ Egger said shortly.  “After the deaths of the little Frauleins we began distributing body armor to the adults as a precaution.  We have replaced the originals and distributed better armor after the death of Frau Ajja.”

“She had armor,” questioned Timo as he paced.

“She did, her shooter shot twice.” _Land_ Egger looked like he was grieving his own daughter for a moment.  “If she had only been shot once she would have survived.  We have corrected for the problem.”

Frau Maurer pulled out a vest that looked like it had heavy scales sewn into it.  Mikael just stared at the vest with wide frightened eyes.

Franky found himself reaching over the back of the couch to grip Mikael’s shoulder as Juri and Jan both moved to bracket the trembling guitarist on the right.  Linke grimly hung on and let Mikael huddle into his side.  Franky thought he’d have run and hidden in one of the houses hidden rooms at the first word of some lunatic shooter, if Franky had been in Mikael’s shoes he would have been halfway to Belgium by now.

“You aren’t going to take everyone back into protective custody,’ asked David quietly.  _Land_ Egger shook his head in resignation.

“For the children, yes.  The adults it simply isn’t practical, and we have had to set up several fake safe houses as there have been a number of fire alarms pulled to get hotel guests all outside where they would be easy targets.”

Franky could feel the horrified shudder go through Mikael’s frame at those words. He felt sickened as well, who would remember or even_ think _to strap on body armor when they thought they were fleeing a burning building.  He only barely paid attention to the conversation as the news blared out yet another breaking story, this one a bomb threat to a hotel.  From the grimace on _Land_ Egger’s face it wasn’t one where they had anyone, but Franky had to wonder if the killers wouldn’t try a process of elimination until they found what they wanted.  He shuddered at the thought.  Fake a fire alarm, find who you needed to kill than block the doors and set the building on fire.  Another shudder wracked the singers frame, and Franky was more than willing to take the comforting arms around his shoulders that David and Timo offered.  Clearly they had had similarly grim thoughts.

~0~

After a week Linke realized that living in shut inside in fear wasn’t a good option.  Mikael tried very hard not to get morose, but under the circumstances it was rather difficult.  All the adult witnesses except Mikael had at least been shot at; another two had been struck and reported as dead. Frau Maurer had called after each ‘death’ to let them know that the women in question were alright other than some bruises.  Thank god it was winter and the heavy coats everyone was wearing hid the body armor.

If they hadn’t had recording to distract them Linke was sure the band would have gone screaming crazy.

The police had figured out who had ordered and paid for the shootings at least. Gottschalk’s wife had thought she wouldn’t get caught and that if all the witnesses were dead her husband would be acquitted.  Linke shook his head, the idiot woman watched too much American TV.  And even those shows said once the witness had testified the guilty party would still get punished even if the witness died.

The media circus around the Gottschalk family had dredged up another sickening fact.  The daughter was hopelessly infatuated with poor Mikael, and completely convinced he loved her and was going to steal her away and marry her someday.

Timo had retched when the simple girl made her plea on national television for Mikael to come get her.  Linke had shuddered in mixed horror, revulsion and pity for the poor thing.  By that point Mikael had curled up in a ball and just buried his face in Linke’s thigh and refused to watch any more.

“That poor girl,” mused David.

“Uhg, Davii!” Timo protested turning to the guitarist and readying a scathing ‘how could you’ rant.  David just looked at him and the words died.

“Think about it, she’s been kept in a room all her life, coddled and protected,”

“And fed way to damn much” muttered Jan under his breath.  David just waved a hand at the DJ’s head.

“Yes, but still, she’s never dealt with the real world, can’t even cope with the real world, and all this time she’s been told stories about Mikael.  Fairy tales, but she doesn’t know that, and she really believes it will all be better when he comes and gets her.”  David looked back at the poor little dough ball weeping on the screen.  “She’s another victim of this whole mess.” 

“Victim or not,” Timo responded. “She’s homely as hell and stupid; and clearly never got any kind of schooling to _help_.”

Linke shuddered in silent agreement.  The girl was a hopeless drooling, blubbering mess, almost the classic stereotype of the mentally handicapped.  He stroked his hands through Mikael’s hair to help keep them both calm.  It was criminal what had been done to her, but she could go back to her sheltered little world in a home for the disabled.  The rest of her father’s victims couldn’t do that.

Franky coming in a turning the TV off was a welcome relief, the singer herding them into the kitchen for a simple supper an even bigger one.  When David and Timo moved to clean up Linke followed Mikael upstairs.  The gentle demands for loving Linke was more than happy to meet and he lay exhausted tangled in his lover’s arms until sleep finally claimed him.

~0~

After the arrest of Frau Gottschalk things quieted down, but the feel of unease never quite faded.  Mikael kept up the habit of wearing the vest whenever he left the house, which was more often than Linke really felt comfortable with given there was still a lunatic gunman running about.  But after one shouting match that David had wound up picking up the aftermaths of Linke was forced to admit Mikael couldn’t be locked away forever.

When Linke had gone searching for Mikael to apologize he found the guitarist in the Library with Juri.  After stomping down a sudden and utterly unreasonable surge of jealousy Linke paused to listen.

“He just worries,” said Juri with a small shrug.  Mikael sighed and raked slim fingers through his loose and very mussed hair.

“I can take care of myself.”  It sounded like Juri had taken the role of mediator for Mikael like David had for Linke.

“That’s not the point and you know it.  He cares about you and there’s some nut case running around with a gun and an attitude problem.  If it was Jan in your position **_I’d_** be having pure hell not stuffing him in a velvet lined box for safety and he’d kick my ass for it.”

Linke stifled a grin at that, Jan might be smaller than Juri but he was by no means the passive partner and more than once Juri had gotten thumped for trying to shelter the small DJ.  Even sick as a dog Jan hated being molly coddled.  Linke coughed softly and when Juri jumped and turned to look gave the tall drummer a weak grin.

Mikael’s eyes were sad and Linke was moving before he even thought about it.  Juri just gave him a wry grin and got out of the way.  To Linke’s quiet relief Mikael just shifted over in the window seat and when Linke wrapped an arm around him leaned into Linke side.

“Forgiven?” Linke couldn’t bring himself to apologize for worrying, and it would be pointless and a lie to say he’d try and stop.  Mikael’s arms crept around Linke ribs and hugged.

“Yeah.”  Mikael looked up at him and Linke smiled and dropped a kiss on Mikael’s forehead.

“Yeah,” Linke answered the unspoken question.  “I can’t promise,” he started and got a soft snort and a weak smile out of Mikael.

“Like I can either.” Mikael squirmed a tiny bit closer and shifted around so he was half curled in Linke’s lap.  Linke smiled at Mikael’s little quirk of curling up so Linke’s left arm was free as his own left arm wormed it’s way up the back of Linke’s shirt.

Linke settled in for a cuddle and missed Timo lurking in the doorway with his video camera, the little red light blinking away.

~0~

They’d mostly put the shooting incidents behind them, as had the other survivors when they got the unpleasant reminder that the lunatic was still out there.  No one died, but two of the three remaining adult women had been hurt.  One had worn her vest and had a lovely set of bruises the other hadn’t but the shooter had missed his shot as she turned to run for the bus and she had a shallow graze.  The first was being reported as dead on the news the second wasn’t.

Timo got the heebie jeebies when he did the math.  Of fourteen there were ten alive now, of those ten three were being _reported_ as dead.  That left a guy Timo had never met two women, three little kids and Mikael.  Worse the police had found three of the missing seven children after the shooter had, and now all deaths of children in the right age group were getting a second look over.  Timo couldn’t even imagine the nightmare that was, and felt sick at how many children died each year, most from were from illness or accident but the number still made Timo’s stomach hurt.

The only good news was they had found one of the kids alive and the little guy had been playing with a camera when the shooter had taken a shot at him.  By sheerest chance the police now had a picture of the shooter.  It was a lousy picture, but it was still a thousand times more information than they had had before.

It didn’t help.

A touch on his shoulder made Timo jump and turn to face Mikael, after a moment of blank staring he managed a sheepish grin and took the bottle of water offered to him.

“They think they’ve found the short, and Jan has extra power converters, they blew a second one to cinders testing a minute ago.”

Timo snickered, Jan better have spares after the show where he’d forgotten and Timo had razzed the crap out of him on stage in front of a few thousand fans.  Now Juri and David both kept spares as well, just in case.  At least this time it was all on the venue, and the problems were showing up in sound check **not** at the show. 

After taking a long slug of water Timo picked up his camera and started fiddling with it as Mikael gave him the full rundown.  The problem with the lights had been fixed as had the issue of part of the stage carrying a charge but the power problems for Jan’s table and Linke’s effects pedals was still driving the crew batty.

When Mikael trotted off to carry Timo’s request for a food break for the band Timo flipped the camera on and started filming to amuse himself.  The crew was used to it and other than a few rude gestures and funny faces they went on with their work and ignored Timo’s chatter.  Linke flipped him off for forms sake and David blinked and smiled his ‘why are you pointing that at me’ smile when Timo left the camera aimed at him to long.

Paul warned them that they would have small groups of fans coming through, part of some promotional gimmick had lotteried off passes for a person and five friends for this show and the next three.  Timo thought it was silly, who wanted to see them swearing at their equipment during set up anyway?

But the management had spoken and given it was a minor thing the band had mostly shrugged and gone with it.  Timo swung his camera around at the sound of girlish squeals.  Behind him Timo heard Paul swear, a glance back and he saw the man checking his watch and heard him swear again.  Apparently the fans were on time and everything else was late.

At last Timo knew that the worse the sound check the better the show, and if this sound check kept going like it was the show was going to be spectacularly good.

Conrad groaned when the girls got closer and Timo grinned.

“Welcome to the life of a rock star,” he quipped and grinned wider at the words Conrad muttered under his breath.  Then he concentrated on filming the girls in the first group fluttering at Franky and David.  The two girls who insisted on getting a threesome shot cuddling on either side of Franky would be great as part of a KYTE video.  And from the way Franky was blushing it might be a good blackmail shot, where were those girls’ hands going anyway?  A strangled squeak later and Timo knew at least one girl had gotten a hand down the back of Franky’s jeans.

Lucky bastard.  Timo knew Franky was completely unable to say no to a pretty girl under certain circumstances.  And when the two girls drifted off with Franky toward a semi secluded corner of the venue Timo knew somebody was going to get off.  At least this time Franky wasn’t getting plied with large amounts of alcohol first.

Timo swung around to find Linke and Mikael crouched over the wiring for Linke’s pedals working on fixing that problem.  A second group of fans came up and this time Jan got fluttered at, although Timo swore he felt a hand brush over his ass.  It was a single fleeting touch so he ignored it in favor of watching Jan bounce at the questions of the one male fan.  From the pained wince on Paul’s face it was another wanna be DJ asking for advice, clearly one with at least some knowledge from the faint grimace on Juri’s face.  Timo grinned smugly, Jan was so gonna get it later.

Timo panned around and up to the guys working in the rigging above the stage, and lingered a bit on one guy who vaguely bothered him.  But then the third group came in and this group fluttered and flirted at him.  From the eye roll David shot him Timo knew he was so gonna get it tonight and smiled his happy cat with cream and canary feathers grin.

A loud pop and a pair of pained yelps got Timo’s attention and camera back on Linke and Mikael as they checked over each other’s scorched fingers.  Conrad came over to check as well and this time swore savagely.  After a few moments of discussion Mikael hopped off the edge of the stage and jogged off toward the supply van for new cables.

Timo didn’t think about it, there was a lot of security around and access was restricted so as he zoomed in on Mikael trotting back with a double handful of new cables he was caught just as flat footed at the trio of loud pops.

Linke’s scream would figure in Timo’s nightmares for years, as would the way Mikael’s knees buckled and the look of surprise and pain on his face.

The organized chaos of sound check exploded into screams and shouting, and more horrifyingly, more gunshots.  Linke and David were off the stage and running toward Mikael, Juri had pulled his phone and was calling emergency services, Jan had taken off god only knew where and Franky was standing frozen in shock by the far wall.

When Paul took the camera away Timo was to frozen to even protest, he was too busy staring at Linke cradling Mikael’s limp body in his arms and fixated on the bright red of the blood trickling down the slender guitarists chin.

~0~

David wanted to cry, Timo was a complete wreck, and Franky was still in shock, Juri coldly angry and Jan a seething mess.  Paul was pacing in circles and Conrad; bless him, was off in search of coffee and tea for them all.

Linke had refused to be separated from Mikael and was with him in the emergency room.  The doors had closed over five hours ago and Timo had only been able to hold out for three before curling into a tight ball and burying his face in David’s belly.  David stroked a hand over Timo’s shoulder and back and sang softly in an effort to keep the rapper grounded until they got word.

“Will they have to report Mikael dead too?” asked Franky in a plaintive tone.  Jan bounded to his feet and started pacing again as the muscles in Juri’s jaw jumped.

“We will not.”

They all jumped in shock and turned to see the _Schupo_ who had been Mikael’s primary shadow all this time walking in.

“We were able to catch the shooter, and thanks to your friends excellent video we have identified both his co conspirators and have one in custody already.”

“And the other,” David winced at the chill under Juri’s voice.  Juri angry wasn’t a fun thing, and with Jan at a rolling boil as well, well it just didn’t bear thinking about.

“We are narrowing the search, and don’t believe it will be long before we have him as well.  His face is being broadcast as we speak.”

David was diverted by Mikael’s voice sounding plaintive and Linke’s sounding stern.  Then almost lost his jaw as a chair was rolled out by a frowning nurse with Linke on one side and an amused looking young doctor on the other, Mikael looked terrible, but he was sitting up and protesting weakly.

“Oh thank god,” Conrad’s fervent voice echoed all their sentiments and only Jan was able to save the tray of coffee from being dumped on the floor.

~0~

Mikael’s desire to go home was firmly and unanimously overruled by the band and he was now in a hospital room under observation for the next few days.  The bruises Timo could see were horrific, enormous black things bigger than his palm; two on the left side of Mikael’s back the other high on his right shoulder blade.  But nothing was broken, Mikael would hurt for a few weeks as things healed but would fully recover in time.

Timo quirked a bit of a smile; Linke was in the bed beside Mikael; well half under him was a more accurate description.  Linke was dozing on his back with Mikael lying draped belly down over his chest.  There was no way for Mikael to get comfortable on his back or sides with the bruises he had and the pillows the hospital had were just to soft for him to get any rest with them.  He’d been restless any time he wasn’t drugged completely unconscious, which he fought as much as was possible and far more than was sensible in Timo’s opinion.

As a sarcastic attempt at compromise one of the nurses had suggested the band take it turn and turn about to cuddle Mikael to sleep.  Timo thought it was more so she’d have help to keep a protesting Mikael still so she could sedate him to sleep than anything else.  But it did work, once draped over Linke’s chest Mikael was out in less than five minutes.  For the sake of the television cameras that intermittently showed up, Jan, Juri and Franky had been seen to take turns but Mikael didn’t sleep as well with them, so off camera Linke was taking the lion’s share of body pillow duty. 

It never got mentioned in the interviews they did, and David had erupted into giggles when one interviewer had come right out and asked if Mikael and Linke were ‘that way’ with each other.  When the interviewer clarified he’d almost gotten soaked as Juri snorted water out his nose trying not to laugh, the rest of the band had collapsed in laugher and the subject had been dropped.  Apparently having the whole band dying laughing at the bare implication killed all but the most diehard fanatics of the subject.  Though Jan had noticed an uptick in fan fictions with Linke and Mikael as a pair in them and had gleefully pointed out that they were now an official pairing on the Panik fiction archive, which had made Mikael turn beet red and made Linke snort in amusement.

They had gotten the show off and Timo had sat down with Mikael to review the video that the police had returned now that they had several copies.  The sound check had been purest hell, and true to form the show had been amazing, even if they had had to drop the songs that needed two guitarists from the set list.  Timo’s splints were off and he was starting the physical therapy, and had David right by him for all of it.

Timo smiled down at the head of tousled black hair in his lap.  In a few more days they’d be back in the studio recording again.  David had been writing, Franky mouthing lyrics to songs that weren’t familiar and Linke had the thousand yard stare he got when he had a new song nagging at him.  Even he hadn’t been immune, writing down half a dozen short raps that might or might not ever get used.

A little whimper broke Timo’s introspection and he looked up in time to see Linke mumble and stroke a hand over Mikael’s hair.  Those two were so stupid cute, Timo’s grin went a bit wicked.  Linke’d been completely blindsided, and while Timo could sympathize he still was going to harass the crap out of both of them in private. When Timo had realized his love for David was him being **_In Love_** with David he’d been flabbergasted and caught completely flat footed.  It had taken months for him to fully wrap his mind around it.  And once he had Linke had just _smirked_ at him and asked what had taken so long.

Timo wasn’t sure if he was glad Linke and Mikael had avoided the months and months of dancing around the subject or not.  He’d missed out of piles and piles of blackmail shots by them just getting on with it.

He still looked forward to teasing Mikael until he blushed about things.

~0~

Linke slanted a glance to his left and smirked when Mikael looked up and smiled.  The club was tiny, reminiscent of the clubs Panik had played in before they had gotten signed, but this wasn’t an official show, just a drop in and play around one.  David, Timo and Jan were parked at the bar with David substituting about half of Timo’s drink orders for less alcoholic versions, Franky was in a back corner necking with a very pretty pick up girl and Juri was taking a slug of water before they decided which song to play next.

The crowd was fairly mellow, with a few Panik fans mixed in it, people who had come into town for the festival starting on Thursday.

Mikael’s fingers were idly picking out a bit of a classical piece as Juri capped his bottle and picked up his sticks.

“New one?” Linke asked and the crowd hushed.  Mikael dropped his eyes and grinned before he turned and mouthed the title back at Juri.  Juri grinned and counted them in.

~0~

“Why didn’t you warn us you were going to do that one,” groused Timo as the band and few crewmen piled into a cab back to the hotel.

“It was a whim.”  Linke wound an arm around Mikael’s shoulders and snuggled that tiny bit closer as Jan wriggled and bounced until Juri hauled him into his lap in self defense.  Conrad and Franky both sighed in relief as they tried to get comfortable for the short hop back to the hotel.

“Still, you didn’t tell us it was ready to use; we could have done it for the festival.”  Timo was a bit drunk and had decided to be a pouty little brat.

“Who says we still can’t,” teased David as he pulled Timo’s cap down over his eyes.

Timo swatted at David and the pair was just getting ready to really start rough housing when the cab pulled up to their hotel and let everyone gratefully pile out.

David dragged Timo up to their room and for now the subject was dropped.

Two days later though Timo brought it up again, and in front of thousands of fans all David could do was pout at him.  Jan just laughed like a loon as Mikael got all but dragged up on stage by the rapper as Timo ran his mouth on over half a dozen subjects before settling on teasing the guitarist until he blushed.

Mikael did take up the guitar handed to him though and get in the proper key as Timo rattled along at the amused crowd.  David had to laugh at the eye roll Mikael gave Timo’s back and the faces Linke made as he moved up to the central mic and adjusted it to his height.  Franky and Jan sat back a bit and slugged down some water, Franky at least was glad of the break it was terribly hot and he really needed the water.

When Timo finally surrendered the mic and sat down on the edge of the stage to slug a bottle of water David was half tempted to help Linke kill him.  But the crowd loved it when Linke in a fit of mischief started up, not with the song Timo expected but the one the band had been playing with as a tribute to survivors of all sorts.  All it had was two guitars, Linke’s bass and three voices right now, eventually there would be more, but without drums or Jan’s turntables it sounded a bit eerie.

To David’s great joy though the crowd hushed and really **_listened_** to the words.  When the chorus came up the second time people began to sing along, halfway through Franky and Timo joined in.  If it had been at night David wouldn’t have been at all surprised to see lighters lit and waving along, as it was the reverent silence for Mikael’s version of the solo was amazing. Linke looked almost fixated as Mikael bit his lower lip in concentration and shook his loose hair away from his face.  When David improvised an accompaniment on piano to ease them back into the last verse there were a smattering of squeals but the crowd raggedly singing along to the last chorus told him they _had_ to do this song as a single

They shared grins as the crowd erupted at the songs end.  A few words and Mikael stepped back to a back up position for the last few songs of the set, and David got the amusement of watching Linke watch Mikael while trying to **not** look like he was watching Mikael.  A couple girls in the front row had noticed and were giggling at each other and watching in a way that made David think they were closet slashers.

When time came for the final bows Mikael hung back and started helping with tear down. He looked totally startled when Juri hauled him forward to take a bow with them.  Bracketed between Linke and Juri all Mikael could do was smile sheepishly and go along with it until the band started moving off stage and he could go back to his job.

~0~

It took a bit of argument with the label before they were able to actually record the song with Mikael, but given he’d helped write it David was adamant he get recording and writing credit with the rest of them.  It actually took longer to _name_ the song than it did to record and mix it.  When Mikael wasn’t there to hear them the band called it a song for Mikael, in the end it was Aushalten Mich and Linke lobbied for an English version to go out as well, so Sustaining Me went out as well on the EP.

Then they had the start of award show lunacy.

They had been nominated for three awards at the Comets and been asked to play as well.  That had sparked a flurry of excitement, last year they had won one of the two awards they had been nominated for.  Then Linke got the call that he had been nominated as well for his solo work.

The whoop of joy had everyone in earshot turning to look at the odd sight of their normally rather restrained bassist slinging a startled Mikael around in a circle in his exuberance.  Once Linke had calmed down they had to discuss the problem that his being invited to perform as a solo act generated.  Linke didn’t see the issue with having his band mates backing him up, but Paul just moaned and groaned about it.  After considerable discussion Paul reluctantly agreed initially just to David, Juri backing Linke up, but eventually to all of them if they wanted to.

Mikael had been laughing as the band steamrolled Paul into letting them do what they wanted to when David had dropped the idea that Mikael had to play too onto the table.  Timo had fallen out of his chair laughing at the stunned look on Mikael’s face and Paul had thrown his hands in a fit of melodramatic dismay. That had set of Jan and Franky into their own boughts of giggles, somehow in the resulting silliness and horseplay Mikael never answered.

Later that night Linke asked again.

“Do you not want to play with me?” Linke asked as he watched Mikael towel off for their shower.  Mikael looked up at him in surprise, but after a moment’s thought smiled sheepishly.

“I guess I never did answer that did I.”  Mikael hung the towel back up and walked back to Linke.  Linke just waited as Mikael came up until they were as close to nose to nose as it was possible to be with Linke being taller.  The feel of the shorter mans arms winding around his hips made Linke shudder a little and smile as he hugged back.

“Well?”  Linke really wasn’t doing patient tonight, but the smile he got made it worth it.

“Yes, I’ll play with you at the Comets; I’ll play for as long as you want me to.”

Linke’s answer to that was non verbal and had Paul cussing that he’d even picked a room between Mikael and Linke’s and Jan and Juri’s, worse his back wall backed up to Timo and David’s room.  He was never getting to sleep.


End file.
